How to Download Files Using Newsgroups

If you’re looking for better use of your internet bandwidth in order to grab your favorite music, games, movies, and so on, you may want to check what other ways to download stuff are there besides torrents. In this article we introduce you to one such alternative called Newsgroups. Let’s talk a bit about what Newsgroups mean. A Usenet newsgroup is like a database within the Usenet system.

This database contains messages posted by users everywhere. So, basically, you can access this repository for a nominal fee (which we’ll see later that it has its benefits) or for free. Newsgroups work with .NZB files. These files are packages which contain references to files posted on Usenet.

Now let’s talk about the steps you need to take in order to be part of this network.

The first thing you need is a good newsgroup server. Giganews (www.giganews.com) is the most popular and comes with 5 paid packages. The most popular package is Diamond ($14,99/month) and comes with an unlimited monthly transfer, 901 days retention, 50 connections and a 256-bit SSL encryption. However, the variety of servers is practically unlimited. After the payment is complete, you will receive information about your username, your password and the server’s address.

For a list of different sites, pricing, etc. you can visit http://www.newsgroupservers.net and http://www.newsgroupreviews.com/. Moreover, you can use some of these servers without even signing up.

After this first step, you’ll need a get a Usenet client. A free option is to get GrabIt (www.shemes.com). After installing it, you can now open any .NZB file and automatically queue up all the files contained by that specific package. There’s a diversity of clients, some free, some paid, the latter offering advanced features, upgrades, etc.

- Newsbin Pro ($35.00) - http://www.newsbin.com/
- Newsleecher ($19,99) – http://newsleecher.com/
- Pan (free) – http://pan.rebelbase.com/
- Xnews (free) – http://xnews.newsguy.com/#download

(If you’ve chosen for a paid service, after installing the client, you’ll need to enter the user/password and the server’s address in the client’s configuration by accessing the “Servers” option).

Now, for the final step, you need to be able to search the content you need. The easy way of doing it is to access the Usenet indexing sites by entering a keyword or just by browsing. Here are some of the websites offering these types of services:

- NZBMatrix (free, reg) – http://nzbmatrix.com/index.php
- Binsearch.info (free, no reg) – http://binsearch.info/
- Newzbin.com (paysite) – www.newzbin.com

If you followed these 3 simple steps, you can now start taking advantage of the benefits that Newsgroups offers.

You can also find useful information in this P2PON article Usenetwork: A Fast and Easy Way to Download Files