People keep asking me how to use Usenet. I figured I’d just post it here for all to see. To those of you that want to keep Usenet a secret, eat a duck. So here we go.
First thing you will want to check is if your ISP (Comcast, SBC, Speakeasy, UL.net) provide you with Usenet access. Most provide text only access, you need binary access to download all those pictures of goats that you want. If your ISP does provide you with Usenet access then there will be limitations, just like with any Usenet account. The limitations are either on the speed or the amount you can download. If your ISP doesn’t provide binary Usenet access or you are too lazy to check then I would recommend that you pick one of the following Usenet providers:
https://secure.giganews.com/signup/ (one of the highest quality providers)
http://easynews.com/ (another good provider)
http://www.news.astraweb.com/ (they have
non-monthly plans)
http://www.exit109.com/~jeremy/news/providers/providers.html (list of
other providers)
Once you have your account you will be given a username, password, and
a news server to use (something like news.giganews.com).
Next you will need to get yourself a News Reader (Program used to access and download from Usenet). I use Grabit, but there are a bunch of different readers out there and Serfer tells me Grabit is for n00bs. If you are a n00b like me, you can download Grabit from the following link:
http://www.shemes.com/
Once you have downloaded Grabit follow these steps:
http://forum.shemes.com/viewtopic.php?t=2591&sid=d6bbdcde75b7967d6f6e95e81a318ab5
Now you are able to start downloading from usenet…but what/how do you
download? There are two ways to download from usenet either by using
Grabit to get headers from different news groups (which can be a pain) or you go to either of the following sites:
http://www.newzbin.com/ (Though I only recommend that you download things that you are legally permitted to download, like pictures of goats.)
http://binsearch.info/ (Keep in mind they sometimes have NOT WORK SAFE
banner ads. This site is less organized, but is free.)
What you get from the two sites above are called .nzb files. These are
files that are associated with Grabit. To give you an idea of how the
process of downloading a .nzb file, loading it into Grabit and then
downloading the file from usenet works, try this:
Go to http://binsearch.info/ Search for something vague like ‘cats’.
What you will see are a list of different files, these are
called headers. What you will do now is pick one of these files by
checking the box next to it on the left side of the screen. Then
either at the top of bottom of the page you will push the button
“Create NZB”. This will prompt you with a download, select open with
and pick Grabit (if it’s not there try to locate it in your program
files directory). Now Grabit will come up and and ask you what type of
batch files, select ‘NZB file’, select the server that you setup
earlier (It might just be the default), and then look at the other
options and choose what you’d like then hit “Grab”.
This will now download the file to your computer to the download
directory (The default is in my documents “Grabit Downloads”).
If you have any questions please feel free to post them in the comments section of this post.