I used to spend a lot of time on news:// protocol back in the 90s, but haven’t touched it for good 20 years or so.

Could anyone point me to a good primer on how to use USENET for piracy? Looking for advice on client software, or webapps, good services worth paying the subscription that will give me access to all the right newsgroups and archives.

Last time I used news, all this stuff was free, so I’m at a bit of a loss on what’s worth paying for.

Btw, I did try looking for answers before turning to Lemmy, but ended up with just a ton of SEO garbage articles designed to serve ads, waste time and provide no real answers :(

  • oDDmON@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    11 months ago

    Paid services have consolidated to a great degree. But I’ve been a long time Easynews subscriber.

    They have decent retention, good completion, and are johnny-on-the-spot re. DMCA requests.

    Their real claim to fame is an easy to use browser based front end, so no third party client hassles and it works on mobile.

    That said, MUCH has changed since the 90s, i.e. encrypted posts, the USENET hierarchy is largely broken and good luck finding any current text discussion (looking at you, Adobe, ya skeevy fucks).

    Should you want more, this is a good guide. https://www.cogipas.com/how-to-use-usenet/

    GL&HF

    • rufus@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      0·
      11 months ago

      Is Usenet always that expensive? Their recommended plan is $30 per month with a discount for the first three months. And the cheapest one is $10/month but that only gets you 20GB…

      I’m not really a pirate so I don’t know much about paid pirating services. But I’m pretty sure I could get Netflix and Disney+ for that kind of money. Is Usenet access really worth that much?