logo Sign In

Guide to Downloading Projects from Usenet

Author
Time
 (Edited)

One solution to acquire some of the more obscure projects in these forums is via binary newsgroups on Usenet. However, the learning curve can be a little steep with plenty of jargon to wade through. I have written the following guide to help fellow members of the OT community get started with Usenet, and hope it is useful. You must have purchased the official releases of the films in question before seeking out alternative versions. I do not condone piracy of any kind.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

+++++ Guide to Downloading Projects from Usenet +++++

IMPORTANT: You must purchase the official Blu-rays or digital HD releases of the films in question before downloading theatrical preservations and fan edits. The projects discussed in these forums must never be bought or sold. I do not condone piracy of any kind.

Introduction

The Users’ Network, or Usenet for short, is a non-centralised computer network of news servers created in 1980 for discussing various topics in newsgroups. After a message is posted to a newsgroup on a news server, it is copied to all the other news servers hosting that particular newsgroup. It can then be viewed by anyone with an account on one of these news servers. While such discussions now usually take place on internet forums instead, newsgroups have been increasingly used for file-sharing due to dramatic increases in internet connection speed over the last 15 years. The same technology used for sharing messages in the original text-based newsgroups has been adapted for sharing much larger music, video and application files in binary newsgroups. Content is uploaded and downloaded using software called a newsreader.

Brief Overview to Downloading from Usenet

To download projects from Usenet, you will need two things:

  • an account with a news server;
  • a newsreader.

I recommend starting with Free-Usenet for the news server. No personal details are required other than a valid email address. It can be used completely free of charge for as long as you like and with no download limits, albeit at a low speed of 1 Mbps (~122 KB/s). A 10 GB file would take roughly one day to download; much higher speeds are available at a price. Alternatively, you can sign up for a free trial with one of the major Usenet providers. This will give you very fast downloads at no cost for a limited time (usually up to one week), although possibly with a data cap.

NZBGet is an excellent newsreader for Windows, MacOS, Linux and Android. It is a very small program to install (only 8 MB), has a user-friendly interface, takes up few system resources, and is freeware. Note that NZBGet is a download client only, and cannot be used to upload files to newsgroups.

Once these are set up, acquiring projects is a two-stage process.

  1. A Usenet search engine, also called an indexer, is used to track down the relevant project. It provides a small NZB file for you to download, containing links to all the project files on the news server. NZB files are named after Newzbin, the first Usenet indexer to develop and use this format. A good free indexer for Original Trilogy projects is NZBKing.
  2. The NZB file is loaded into the newsreader, at which point the main download from the news server begins. Once this is complete, the newsreader will automatically verify your downloaded files against those stored on the news server, attempt to repair them if necessary, and finally unpack any RAR files.

Step-by-Step Guide

  1. Registering with a news server.
  • Sign up for a free account with Free-Usenet.
  • Check your email for your password and log in to Free-Usenet.
  • Click on “Free account”.
  • Click on “I’m not a robot” and complete the CAPTCHA.
  • Click on “Generate free account”.
  • The server username and password listed here will be needed by your newsreader.
  • Every 3 hours, your free subscription will expire and must be renewed from this page.
  1. Configuring a newsreader.
  • Download and install the latest stable release of NZBGet.
  • Run NZBGet. The user interface should appear in your web browser.
  • Click on “Settings” in the top bar.
  • Click on “NEWS-SERVERS” in the left-hand panel.
  • Complete the following settings:
    Server1.Name:        A server name such as "Free-Usenet" (optional)
    Server1.Host:        news.free-usenet.com
    Server1.Port:        443 (used for an SSL-encrypted connection)
    Server1.Username:    The username listed in your Free-Usenet account details
    Server1.Password:    The password listed in your Free-Usenet account details
    Server1.Encryption:  Yes (to use SSL encryption for more security)
    Server1.Connections: 1 (the free account won't accept more than 1)
  • Click on “Test Connection” near the bottom to check the settings are correct.
  • Click on “Save all changes” at the bottom left followed by “Reload NZBGet”.
  1. Searching for a project with a Usenet indexer.
  • Visit NZBKing.
  • Input some key words for the project in the search bar and press Return.
  • Optional: click on “NFO” (if present) beside a project to read some information about it.
  • Optional: click on “Details” to see the project files, the upload date and the exact file size.
  • Click on the “NZB” button by the relevant project to download the NZB file.
  1. Downloading a project.
  • Run NZBGet if it isn’t already open.
  • Click on “+Add”.
  • Drag and drop the NZB file onto the pop-up window, or click on “Select file” and navigate to it.
  • Click on “Submit”. The download should begin: check the speed by the aeroplane at the top left.
  • Every 3 hours, your Free-Usenet account will expire and should be renewed as follows:
    • Shortly before the 3 hours are up, click on the big green arrow to pause the download.
    • Wait for your Free-Usenet account to expire, and then renew it for another 3 hours.
    • Enter the new password in NZBGet’s news server settings.
    • Click on “Save all changes” followed by “Reload NZBGet”.
    • Click on the big orange arrow to resume the download.
  • When the download is finished, it may take a few minutes for the RAR files to be verified,
    repaired (if needed) and finally unpacked to this directory: C:\ProgramData\NZBGet\complete.
  1. Additional notes on Free-Usenet account expiry.
  • If you don’t pause the download before your Free-Usenet account expires, NZBGet will start to think that articles are missing on the server, rather than realise that the server password is no longer valid. Consequently, the health of the download will slowly reduce from 100%. You can nevertheless follow the procedure in step 4 to renew your account and resume the download, the only difference being that NZBGet will have to repair the “missing” articles at the very end by acquiring some Par2 files.
  • If the health ever drops below the critical value (usually 90%, assuming there are enough Par2 files to repair 10% of the download), NZBGet will mark the status as “Failure” and move the download to the “History” tab. At this point, follow these steps to recover the download:
    • Renew your Free-Usenet account for another 3 hours.
    • Enter the new password in NZBGet’s news server settings.
    • Click on “Save all changes” followed by “Reload NZBGet”.
    • Click on the “History” tab and find the failed download.
    • Click on “Failure” and select “Retry failed articles”.
    • You should now find that the health is back to 100%.

Appendix 1: Usenet vs Torrents & Cloud Storage

Usenet has a number of advantages over other popular methods of downloading files.

  • Usenet is more private and secure than file-sharing via torrents. When downloading from Usenet, you are connected only to the news server and not to other downloaders (known as “peers”) as you would be with a torrent. There is thus no automatic uploading of content to other peers while you are downloading from Usenet.

  • News servers on Usenet usually have a high retention: files are often available for 8 to 10 years after being uploaded. Torrents are only available while they are being seeded and can dry up within a few weeks. Download links on cloud storage platforms such as Mega can also expire without warning if the owner either deletes or stops sharing the files.

  • Downloading from Usenet via a paid account with a news server is very fast, while torrents can be slow depending on the number and speed of the available peers. (That said, downloading from Usenet with a completely free account is generally rather slow.)

  • Usenet features the powerful verification and recovery of damaged or missing files, handled automatically by the newsreader. While torrents allow automatic file verification via checksums, there is no facility to repair damaged files. Content obtained from the cloud cannot usually be checked for download errors.

Appendix 2: Useful Settings in NZBGet

Completed and ongoing downloads are stored in C:\ProgramData\NZBGet\complete and C:\ProgramData\NZBGet\intermediate respectively. You can change these directories with DestDir and InterDir in the PATHS settings.

By default, NZBGet deletes the downloaded RAR files once they have been successfully unpacked. It also downloads the bare minimum number of Par2 files needed for file verification and repair (if needed), deleting them afterwards along with any SFV checksum files present.

  • To keep the RAR files after unpacking, set UnpackCleanupDisk to No in the UNPACK settings.
  • To download all the Par2 files and also keep them afterwards (along with SFV checksum files), set ParCheck to Force in the CHECK AND REPAIR settings, and empty ExtCleanupDisk in the UNPACK settings.

Appendix 3: File Verification and Recovery with Usenet

The successful recovery of partially corrupted files is a huge advantage of Usenet. Large files and folders are archived and split into multi-part RAR files before being uploaded to binary newsgroups such as alt.binaries.starwars. Uploaders usually include some “parity archive (version 2) files”, or Par2 files for short, alongside the RAR files. These are designed to help newsreaders with file verification and recovery at the end of the download process.

The newsreader first downloads the RAR files in pieces called blocks, verifying checksums at each stage. Occasionally, some blocks will be missing or damaged on the news server. Provided there are at least as many blocks in the available Par2 files as there are missing/damaged blocks in the RAR files, the newsreader will be able to completely restore the latter by downloading the required number of Par2 files. Uploaders are encouraged to produce enough Par2 files to repair 10% of the project. Hence there is no reason to panic if a Usenet indexer lists a project as being slightly incomplete.

Here is an extremely simplified example to illustrate the basic idea behind Par2 recovery. Suppose the file you wish to download consists of the following four blocks of eight bits:

Block
1 0 1 0 1 1 0 1
0 1 1 1 0 1 0 0
0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0
1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1

Here they are with the row and column totals included:

Block
1 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 = 5
0 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 = 4
0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 = 2
1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 = 4
= = = = = = = =
2 1 4 2 1 3 0 2

The row totals can be written in binary, acting as simple checksums for each block. The parities of the column totals are now shown, with 0 for “even” and 1 for “odd”. This block of parities forms a Par2 file which has been provided by the uploader.

Block             Checksum
1 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 = 101
0 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 = 100
0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 = 010
1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 = 100
= = = = = = = =
0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 ← Par2

Imagine the second block in the file has been corrupted on the news server. It might be entirely missing, or perhaps slightly damaged with an erroneous third bit.

Missing 2nd block                       Damaged 2nd block (3rd bit)

Block             Checksum              Block             Checksum
1 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 = 101                   1 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 = 101
x x x x x x x x = xxx                   0 1(0)1 0 1 0 0 = 100
0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 = 010                   0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 = 010
1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 = 100                   1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 = 100
= = = = = = = =                         = = = = = = = =
0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 ← Par2                  0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 ← Par2

As the newsreader downloads the blocks and verifies the checksums, it becomes apparent that there is a problem with the second block: the data is either missing or inconsistent with the checksum. The Par2 file now comes to the rescue, allowing the newsreader to completely restore the corrupted block. The three good blocks are added to the Par2 block bit by bit, and the parities of the column totals reproduce the original second block.

Block
1 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 ← good 1st block
0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 ← good 3rd block
1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 ← good 4th block
0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 ← Par2 recovery block
= = = = = = = =
0 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 ← recovered 2nd block

Further information on the Par2 recovery process can be found here: http://www.quickpar.org.uk/.

++++++++++++++++++++++++
Bluto, Original Trilogy Forums
September 2019
++++++++++++++++++++++++

Author
Time

1st time poster. I’ve just read through The Ultimate Introductory Guide and Bluto’s guide but am definitely a noob to Usenet. I have 2 noob questions. First, are user-names unique in Usenet? For instance, when Bluto and Harmy mention the user Obi-Have Kenobi having the correct files, is it possible to get files from a DIFFERENT Obi-Have Kenobi on Usenet, or would that user ID generally be considered a reliable source? Second, since Bluto’s guide states that a newsreader such as Newshosting automatically does checksum checks, is it not necessary to also run a checksum on your own? OR is it that the newsreader does a checksum to ensure the file FIDELITY with the download source, and the independent checksum we do on our end compared to the checksum listed is to ensure AUTHENTICITY?

Thank you guys in advance!

Author
Time
 (Edited)

I believe it is possible (albeit unlikely in the particular example you mention) for there to be two different users with the same username appearing on Usenet search results, since they may have signed up to different news servers. Although you may be searching on a specific news server, the files it has might not necessarily have been uploaded there originally. Remember that news servers continuously share files with each other. However, where the email address is also shown and appears to be valid, I would imagine that this does identify the user precisely.

You are correct to say that the newsreader is verifying fidelity rather than authenticity. In other words, all you know is that your downloaded files are a perfect match for what is stored on the news server. When files are originally uploaded to a news server, they are not verified for authenticity; after all, most of them are probably breaking copyright. Therefore, unless you trust that uploads from a particular user are authentic, I would recommend verifying the overall checksum at your end as well.

Author
Time

I’m new to all of this, I enjoy my DVDs but I want to see it how I saw it growing up. So I guess I’ll be trying to follow these instruction now. Thank you for being so detailed…wish me luck.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Hey dear people. Thanks for the great information, I was under the firm impression that usenet as a thing has been shut down a few years back.

I have run into an issue with 4k77. The version by SomethingSomeone through binsearch consistently fails to repair and unpack after downloading: “Repair failed for 4K77/22A0104B180C8421958D2D2B29A89435: not enough par-blocks, 813 block(s) needed, but 0 block(s) available. Recovery files created by: Created by par2SL version 1.0.”

So apparently this version is dead on arrival. There’s another version of 4k77 1.4 uploaded by SomethingSomeone, but that’s 39 gigabytes. It’s also a mkv file… I wonder what’s up with that.

Author
Time

Sigmoid said:

Hey dear people. Thanks for the great information, I was under the firm impression that usenet as a thing has been shut down a few years back.

I am a big user of Emule, which many also assume is dead.
Both Usenet and Emule are off radar, to me a very good thing.
Bluto, could you talk a little about “retention”?
I was a free user of Usenet back when Mysterbin was around, but retention limits finally pushed me towards Email and private tracker torrent groups.

Author
Time

Vultural said:
I am a big user of Emule, which many also assume is dead.
Both Usenet and Emule are off radar, to me a very good thing.
Bluto, could you talk a little about “retention”?
I was a free user of Usenet back when Mysterbin was around, but retention limits finally pushed me towards Email and private tracker torrent groups.

The retention of Usenet news servers these days seems to be around 8 to 10 years. (For those who aren’t familiar with Usenet, “retention” in this context just refers to the length of time a collection of files is stored on the server before being deleted to make room for newer content.)

It may well be more than this; the better servers might look to see which older files are still be downloaded regularly and preserve these longer. Besides, after 10 years or so, many uploads will be obsolete having been replaced by newer and better versions.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

I have played around with the NZBGet + Free-Usenet set-up.
Fairly straightforward. Thank you, Bluto.
I have had a high fail rate, however, and I wonder about if the 3 hour time limit affects this.
(I’m seldom around when the expiration hits, and then the warnings mount.)
Free-Usenet has extremely reasonable prices for Block accounts, and I am tempted.
I cannot find any sort of review for this news server.
Has anyone used something beyond the free account, and can you provide feedback?

Author
Time

Update -
OK, I still don’t know jack about free-usenet.
Online reviews have proved to be elusive, or in my case, non-existent.
Yeah, and I know the Fight Club rule about Usenet. Tell that to Reddit or any open forum joint (like OT).
Anyway, for you curious souls, speed for freeloaders works out to 100 kb.
You got a three hour time limit until it expires.
Beforehand expiration, you better hit PAUSE on NZBGet or you’ll receive fails.
These affect the “health” of the file. Once health falls below 90%, it’s all over, Barney.
That said, I’ve been doing OK. I’ve nabbed a few items that were 2 years old.
The retention for free-usenet is damn good.
By comparison, I had tried XSUsenet several years ago.
Their retention for moochers went from 1000 days to 100 to 10.
I went back to more reliable eMule and private tracker torrents.
All in all, my experience with free-usenet has been alright, although I would still like to hear others’ interactions with this outfit before I pony up cash.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Vultural said:

You got a three hour time limit until it expires.
Beforehand expiration, you better hit PAUSE on NZBGet or you’ll receive fails.
These affect the “health” of the file. Once health falls below 90%, it’s all over, Barney.

I didn’t know NZBGet would do that after expiry of the 3-hour Free-Usenet account. Ideally, it should realise that the news server password is no longer valid and warn you, rather than assume the files are all broken. Or perhaps it’s an issue with Free-Usenet sending incorrect information. I’ll try to let the developer know about this issue.

Having had a look, there seems to be a workaround for now. If the health drops below the threshold needed for the Par2 recovery (usually around 90%), the file is automatically moved to “History” and the status changed to “Failure” as you have discovered. From here:

  • Renew your password in Free-Usenet for another 3 hours.
  • Enter the new password in NZBGet’s news server settings.
  • Click on “Save all changes” followed by “Reload NZBGet”.
  • Click on the “History” tab and find the failed download.
  • Click on “Failure” and select “Retry failed articles”.

JEDIT: I have added section 5 to my guide with the above details.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Thank you for the workaround, Bluto, I appreciate that.
I try to keep an eye on my three hour limit.
As a free-loader, a mooch, I cannot really expect to receive the same quality of treatment as those paying for blocks or monthlies.
Throttled or otherwise, for me, free-usenet is more than generous.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Hello, I am new to this forum and don’t really know anything about Usenet. The guide is really detailed and useful but I was just wondering about renewing my account every three hours during the download. What happens if I’m accidentally too late, is there a way to get the download back?
Also how long would you reckon 4k77 would take to download using free-usenet?

Once again thank you for making this guide for people like me who have no clue how to use this stuff.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Ideally, you should pause the download in NZBGet (click on the big green arrow at the top left) a minute or two before the 3 hours are up. Then check in Free-Usenet a few minutes later to see if your account has expired, renew your free account, enter the new password in NZBGet’s server settings, and resume the download.

If you don’t pause the download in time, NZBGet will think there is a problem with files missing on the server, rather than realise that the server password is no longer valid. Consequently, the health of the download will slowly reduce from 100%. You can nevertheless go through the above procedure to resume the download, the only difference being that NZBGet will have to repair the missing articles at the very end by acquiring some Par2 files.

If the health ever drops below the critical value (usually 90%, assuming there are enough Par2 files to repair 10% of the download), then NZBGet will mark the download as “Failure” and move it to the “History” tab. At this point, follow these steps to get things moving again:

  • Renew your password in Free-Usenet for another 3 hours.
  • Enter the new password in NZBGet’s news server settings.
  • Click on “Save all changes” followed by “Reload NZBGet”.
  • Click on the “History” tab and find the failed download.
  • Click on “Failure” and select “Retry failed articles”.
  • You should now find that the health is back to 100%. If you can keep it that way, NZBGet
    won’t need to repair any files at the end (as long as they are intact on the news server).

I have recently been in touch with the developer of NZBGet, but do not yet know whether this issue is something he can fix. (The fault may lie with Free-Usenet, depending what error message it is sending.)

Regarding your final point, the download speed for a free account is 1 Mbps ~ 0.42 GB/h (*).
That’s about 7.5 GB per day if you can renew the password every three hours while you’re awake. It’s certainly not very fast, but it is free! Much faster speeds are available at a cost, of course. For a large file such as 4K77, you’ll probably need to spend $5 or so for a fast “block” account unless you don’t mind waiting a week or two.

(*) This assumes the usual decimal convention for transfer speeds (1 Mbps = 1,000,000 bits per second) and binary convention for file size (1 GB = 1024^3 bytes).

JEDIT: I have added section 5 to my guide with the above details on how to proceed after expiry of the Free-Usenet account.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Thank you for such a detailed response. It’s great that this community is so helpful to new people like me. It’s gonna take a while so I’ll probably get started with the download soon!

Author
Time

Personally, I keep a small timer handy.
Set mine to 2 hours, 45 minutes. Then watch my time.
Usually I can get 3 or 4 free sessions a day.
My download speed always seems to be 100 kbps.
Not terrible, but definitely throttled.
It has been an OK experience for me, as I’ve mostly sought oddities.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

A timer is a very good idea - I use the alarm on my watch.
Presumably your speed is around 100 KB/s (kilobytes per second) rather than 100 kbps (kilobits per second)?

Author
Time

Hi Bluto!

This is great. However, I’m struggling to get my download to start. I get this warning:

Connection to my.newsserver.com failed: ErrNo 10060, A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond.

Any idea what might be up?

Much love from South Africa.

Author
Time

Hi mayormeijer, I sent you a PM a few days ago. In case you haven’t seen it, click on the speech bubble at the top right of the screen.

Author
Time

Hey man, great instructions. I would’ve been totally lost without them.
I’m sort of having a problem with the downloading. No matter which file I choose, I keep getting error messages. Do you think you could help out? thanks.

Author
Time

Thanks! Individual queries are best discussed by PM; feel free to send me one outlining the issues you’re having. (Click on my avatar and select “Start a Private Topic”.)

Author
Time

Man, that was a confusing process, but I got everything downloaded thanks to the amazing instructions in this article. Unfortunately I’m having the exact same message and issue as Sigmoid’s PAR2 issue. Am I missing a whole bunch more PAR2 files? I forced each one (I think there were 7 or 8) to download and attempt a repair. If I look on the Binsearch page where I combined everything into a single NZB, it looks like there are a lot more PAR2 files there than were included in my NZB but I’m not sure. Feel free to PM me if you need to.