Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by wil421 781 days ago
Why do you torrent instead of using Usenet?
2 comments

Because torrents have a very low bar to entry. I love piracy! But, I've tried a few times to get into the Usenet scene and I always get annoyed.

1. I have to pay for access to a usenet server. The entire point of piracy is that I'm not paying.

2. I need special, poorly documented, and practically undiscoverable tools to: access Usenet, download a file split over 2million posts, reassemble that file, extract the file from whatever esoteric compression algorithm the uploader decided was best that week.

3. I need to find a Usenet server that carries binaries, then, I need to find the individual groups that have the content I want.

On the other hand, thepiratebay has 99% of everything I want, and what it doesn't have I can usually find pretty quickly though Yandex or sharemania.

1. 10-15 dollars a month is not exorbitant and quite worth it with a media server.

2. sabnzbbd or nzgget are hardly poorly documented or undiscoverable.

3. you need to get an indexer which handles all those files over 2 million posts. the software in 2 will put them together for you with minimal effort.

i would recommend a premium indexer as they are quite cheap but there are free available.

i would also like to note that since you're not using a torrent you can't be done for distribution of copywritten material to the same scale as you can for a torrent.

That's just my personal preference, but this whole setup can be done with Usenet too.