I used to spend a lot of time on news:// protocol back in the 90s, but haven’t touched it for good 20 years or so.

Could anyone point me to a good primer on how to use USENET for piracy? Looking for advice on client software, or webapps, good services worth paying the subscription that will give me access to all the right newsgroups and archives.

Last time I used news, all this stuff was free, so I’m at a bit of a loss on what’s worth paying for.

Btw, I did try looking for answers before turning to Lemmy, but ended up with just a ton of SEO garbage articles designed to serve ads, waste time and provide no real answers :(

  • oDDmON@lemmy.worldEnglish
    71·
    11 months ago

    Paid services have consolidated to a great degree. But I’ve been a long time Easynews subscriber.

    They have decent retention, good completion, and are johnny-on-the-spot re. DMCA requests.

    Their real claim to fame is an easy to use browser based front end, so no third party client hassles and it works on mobile.

    That said, MUCH has changed since the 90s, i.e. encrypted posts, the USENET hierarchy is largely broken and good luck finding any current text discussion (looking at you, Adobe, ya skeevy fucks).

    Should you want more, this is a good guide. https://www.cogipas.com/how-to-use-usenet/

    GL&HF

    • rufus@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      7·
      11 months ago

      Is Usenet always that expensive? Their recommended plan is $30 per month with a discount for the first three months. And the cheapest one is $10/month but that only gets you 20GB…

      I’m not really a pirate so I don’t know much about paid pirating services. But I’m pretty sure I could get Netflix and Disney+ for that kind of money. Is Usenet access really worth that much?

        • Alt+F4@lemm.eeOPEnglish
          2·
          11 months ago

          Haha, since Google searches are increasingly garbage, I asked Chat GPT about USENET and Eweka was one of the recommended providers :)

          • astanix@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3·
            11 months ago

            I use eweka and thundernews as backup. I rarely need thundernews. It only tries that one of eweka is missing what I’m looking for.

            Screenshot_20231221_101924

      • oDDmON@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        11 months ago

        I pay $15/mo and w/ rollover gigs always have plenty. If you’re looking for obscure or D/C’d content, it’s damn well worth it.

        Was able to score a Nordic comedy series for a co-worker that couldn’t be found elsewhere.

        Also, content you sideload from USENET doesn’t disappear at the whim of a corporation, or due to licensing shenanigans. Just sayin’.

          • rufus@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
            5·
            11 months ago

            Hehe. I think the majority of people (who haven’t stumbled here by accident) don’t really need that reminder.

            I’m a bit unsure. I don’t really mind stealing from big companies. Even more so if they make all those stupid business decisions and start to become more and more greedy. I personally think it’s a bit unethical to pay for stolen goods. That is fencing. But I think everyone should decide for themselves how they’d like to handle this.

            If Nextflix only licenses a show for temporary use by me, it’s more a license violation than a proper analogy to stealing that would apply. But maybe I shoud read a book and not watch that much TV anyways.

            • ilickfrogs@lemmy.worldEnglish
              21·
              11 months ago

              I agree with almost everything you said. I’m not referring to services like Netflix as owning. More specifically the recent debacle with Sony removing access to PURCHASED content. I would happily buy my movies and TV shows on something like Google play movies or Apple TV. My issue is I can’t trust any of these corps not to pull the rug out from under me. Their track record says they will. It’s a question of when not if. We need a streaming equivalent of Spotify for TV and movies. Obviously it would be much more expensive than Spotify, but I would happily pay for the convenience of having anything I want as much as I want on one platform/interface. Streaming sucks right now where libraries are spread across platforms with varying interfaces, bitrate etc. shit just sucks lol

              • rufus@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
                21·
                11 months ago

                Yeah. Spotify really got to me. It’s so convenient to have everything available. At least it used to be that way except for the one-off obscure album or a few artists who still own their copyrights and can decide to not participate. But lately a few of the songs have become greyed out and unavailable. And the unavoidable enshittification has begun.

                I still remember the times when I bought CDs and owned stuff. And the time when lots of series were available on Netflix and it was worth it’s (lower) monthly price. But as of now half the movies and series I like aren’t available. Like Star Trek, all the Disney movies…

                And concerning Spotify: I read they pay an artist at most a third of a cent per streamed song. That is ripping off the artists anyways. I think I could just cancel my subscription, rip off the artists myself and cut out the middle man.