Using Newsgroups for newbies

Free Software
Xnews usenet newsreader to download binary files.
QuickPar software raid recovery for missing, corrupt, misnamed files both par and par2 files.
Mac use MacParDeluxe and Split and Concat and/or Machacha for par and par2 files.
Notepad (comes with windows) associate .nfo files with it to read iNFO files. Format | Font | choose Terminal. This allows you to see dos character ansi art in the .nfo files.
IZArc free unrar multiple rar'ed files. .rar - .001 - .part01.rar

Download xnews.zip 5.04.25 [697KB] | QuickPar-0.9.1.0.exe [489KB]

Easynews


Cost (optional)
Easynews.com $10 per 20GB or 30days whichever comes first. Has web interface to browse files and batch downloading. Has about 30 day retention. Extremely fast download speeds. Thumbnails for picture newsgroups.
Handy easynews.com links:
Easynews Global search
Easynews Secure downloading


Giganews

Giganews Newsgroup Service If you use a binary newsgroup reader like xnews (pc) or unison (mac) giganews is excellent with their retention rate and speed. Giganews.com offers the following plans. $25/month for unlimited downloads with 10 simultaneous connections. Or $13/month for 25GB. Or if you mainly just use text newsgroups and not binaries they have an ultra cheap $8/month for 2GB. Giganews is well known in the industry and provides newsgroups services for many ISPs and their customers.

Newsgroup Links

Which app, movie, game, etc. has been released to which newsgroup
nfonews.com
newzbin.com
read .nfo files and movie screenshots
nforce.nl
pajrat.com
vcdquality.com



Simplified Newsgroup Guide

Xnews


Open xnews and simply put in your ISPs newsgroup Server | New and accept defaults.. See your ISP support page to find out what it is. Let it download entire list of available newsgroups. Click on the column Total twice to show the most popular newsgroups based on the number of posts. See newzbin.com and nfonews.com to get an idea of which binary newsgroups you wish to subscribe to (kinda like bookmarking them for quick access). alt.binaries.blah.blah

= Subscribe bookmarks them (green arrows) for quick access click All to toggle

- Unsubscribe delete from your bookmarks

Ctrl-Enter Open Special limit how many headers your open at once. Monitor your memory usage closely.

After choosing which files you wish to download (CTRL select various, SHIFT select ranges, CTRL-SHIFT select multiple ranges) click SPACEBAR to queue the files. The order in which you queue them will be the order in which you decode them. Click Decode or F4 and choose a directory. Don't download incomplete binaries (dark blue).

Group | Discard Headers (free memory) | All reload headers each time to prevent them from caching to your hd.

Searching for something in paticular can be done by putting in the keyword between the T and S. After you put it in then hit T again so it'll thread together the multipart postings. When threading a faster CPU helps and hundreds of thousands of messages more memory helps. Click S to clear all filters and start fresh.

QuickPAR, MacPAR deLuxe PAR files

Now that you've download 50 rar files you may have some incomplete or missing rar files. You need one PAR(ity) file per missing file. If your missing 5 rar files you need 5 parity files. Doesn't matter .p01 .p04 .p07 .p08 .p10 will do.

QuickPar, MacPAR deLuxe PAR2 files

PAR2 files are new and improved. Partially downloaded files from a set can be used to recover which makes it more efficient than par files. QuickPar will tell you how many blocks you need to recover. . Say you are missing 16 blocks then you'd need to download the files b) through e) since 1+2+3+5+9 = 20 blocks. Open QuickPar and in the options be sure to check Associate with PAR2 files so you just need to double click on any one of them.

Here's an example of what a PAR2 recovery set looks like. Number of blocks are in bold.
a) somefile.par2 56KB
b)somefile.vol000+01.PAR2 2,244KB
c) somefile.vol001+02.PAR2 4,487KB
d) somefile.vol003+03.PAR2 6,675KB
e) somefile.vol006+05.PAR2 11,106KB
f) somefile.vol011+09.PAR2 19,912KB
g) somefile.vol020+16.PAR2 35,281KB
h) somefile.vol036+23.PAR2 50,594KB
i) somefile.vol059+23.PAR2 50,594KB
j) somefile.vol082+23.PAR2 31,938KB

SFV If you have an .sfv file you can double-click it and it'll verify file integrity in the entire set and point out any missing files. If you have a .par or any parity file you can just ignore the .sfv as it's redundant.


MacPAR deLuxe missing .003 and .008. I need 211 blocks and onnly have 32 + 64 = 96 blocks. Once I get 211 - 96 = 115 more blocks I'll be able to recover the .iso image.


Create Par2 preferences.


Split and Concat isn't always needed but in some cases in may be so it's good to have. Kinda automates the unarchiving process.

IZArc or Winrar

Extract your rar set archive by clicking on the first rar. It's either .rar or .001 or .part01.rar
You may get a .bin .cue in which case burn the image file to cd. Mount the .cue file as a virtual cd-rom with daemon-tools and choose CD to CD copy with the virtual cd-rom as your source in Nero, etc..
Note: if it's .part01.rar you may have to use winrar rather than IZArc.

Easynews

Use it if you can't locate enough pars to recover missing rar files and you'll make your 6GB go a long way. You can use NNTP (Network News Transfer Protocol) interface with xnews and they don't charge you for header download but the web interface can't be beat for ease of use. They mention a 250MB limit but 2000MB is possible (2GB max). Check a box of file#1 and check a box of file#10, click Ranges then choose a zip manager queue of #1 - 10 for download then unzip when complete. Definitely check out there Global Search feature. Also you may login securely too.

Doesn't get much simpler than that. Obviously there's quite a few other ways of doing it and various other software out there but this seems the simplest and easiest way to get started. Advanced reading check out Tim's Newsgroup Download Guide best I've ever come across.

example how to resume a download using wget (windows, mac, linux)
wget -c --http-user=USER --http-passwd=PASS http://zip.members.easynews.com:81/cgi-bin/zipit/2-1b80e.zip

Updated Jun 8, 2006


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