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NZBMatrix Closes Their Website

Posted by samzenpus on from the gone-for-good dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Hot on the heels of the closure of Newzbin2, this morning the usenet NZB indexing website NZBMatrix closed shop in the face of another DMCA notice. NZBMatrix allowed users to sift through messy usenet groups and quickly find data for download. NZBMatrix's API allowed automated polling from various clients, making it one of the more popular NZB sites. This is one of the last public NZB indexing sites, leaving mostly invite-only underground sites. A sad day for usenet users everywhere."

14 of 144 comments (clear)

  1. NZBMatrix had a great community, like Demonoid by BenJeremy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You could always rely on a decent number of comments for popular releases to filter a good download form a bad one.

    Sad to see this one go, as I had relied on it more and more well before Newzbin closed its doors.

  2. Another 10 bucks wasted by Spritzer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How nice of them to accept premium payments up to the day they closed.

  3. Re:No More Public Usenets by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The best combo is predb.me / nzbindex.nl

    Astranews sucks now too much content is missing.

    Going to need to use a NL only provider without US Servers.

  4. Re:Need to decentralize by Mascot · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They're going after the Usenet providers as well, via automated DMCA takedown requests. The providers have no choice but to comply (and to keep up, also automating the process), which means content is effectively gone within hours of being uploaded.

    The irony when it comes to TV shows/movies is the same as it used to be with the music industry: the stuff being downloaded is largely not available to buy online legally. I wish they would put their efforts into making this content available for purchase instead of wasting their time trying to stem the flood of copyright infringement.

  5. Re:I am not sad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How is this moderated up so high. No provider was forced to shudder their doors because of the huge size of the binaries groups. Just dont carry the group. Usenet discussion died because of spam and web forums.

  6. Re:I am not sad by StormyWeather · · Score: 5, Informative

    This comment is factually correct, although it's modded down because it is contrary to someones worldview, that's often the case with Slashdot negative moderation. I used to run a NNTP server for a small ISP in 1994. I just filtered out the worst offending binary groups when the cost became prohibitive. I ran an NNTP server on a 486 with a couple scsi drives just fine with just the text groups. I can't imagine it being a "huge cost" to any ISP without the binaries.

  7. Too many people... by spagthorpe · · Score: 5, Funny

    Too many people violated the first rule of USENET.

    --

    WWJD -- What Would Jimi Do?
    (Smash amp, burn guitar, take home the groupies)

    1. Re:Too many people... by unr3a1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      That's not really the point. Yes, Usenet is old, but it was generally unknown to the majority of your average computer users. For years, the MAFIAA has been going after torrenting, with seemingly no knowledge of the capabilities and common use for Usenet. Now all of the sudden, NZB sites and Usenet providers have been getting hit with the DMCA notices. Again, seemingly it's apparent that the MAFIAA has only recently become aware of Usenet, so spagthorpe was using a funny and appropriate movie reference to point out that a lot of people couldn't keep the Usenet secret to themselves.

  8. Re:No More Public Usenets by AlphaWolf_HK · · Score: 4, Informative

    There are some good newznab based providers that I tend to rely upon the most. They work great, and there's basically nothing stopping anybody from building their own.

    There's also binsearch.info. Binsearch is easily the most comprehensive nzb index in existence, only downside is that it is also unfiltered, but the bad stuff is easy to spot (e.g. passworded rars are marked as such, and NZB's that aren't anywhere near large enough to be what they claim to be are obviously not what you're looking for.) Generally if I need something obscure, binsearch is a great last resort if nobody else has it.

    --
    Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
  9. Re:I am not sad by water-and-sewer · · Score: 5, Informative

    The text groups are not dead; not by a long shot, and for some topics they're still a great first place to look (Perl questions or Lisp for example).

    Go to aioe.net (org?) for a free text group provider. Albasani is another, although the owner, Alexander Bartolich sadly passed away suddenly earlier this year so it's not clear how much longer that site will be around. EndlessSeptember - or something like that - is also providing free text groups.

    And the forum at www.dictatorshandbook.net is technically a news server. Connect to it with a news client (Unison, SLRN, Knode, TIN, Pine, Thunderbird) to give it a try and remember how much awesomer NNTP threads are relative to web forums or -- gack -- AJAXy Facebook-type stuff.

    --
    If this were Usenet, I'd killfile the lot of you.
  10. Re:Why not use another method? by SealBeater · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I wish I could convey in words how obvious it is that you have no idea what you are talking about.

    --
    -- Its survival of the fittest...and we got the fucking guns!!!
  11. Re:Why not use another method? by X0563511 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You've just further reinforced our impression.

    --
    For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
  12. Re:Why not use another method? by loufoque · · Score: 3, Interesting

    See xweasel for an index.

  13. nzbs.su invites? by plazman30 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Alright. Who has nzbs.us invites to hand out?