Vorpal
Premium
join:2002-02-10
Fort Worth, TX
| Giganews - Just signed up. Am I stupid?
I just signed up for the Giganews Diamond Package.
This is $30. Am I an idiot for paying $30 a month. I've always paid $16 for Unlimited and ~90 retention. For double I'm getting twice as many connections, 200 day retention and SSL. Honestly - I was happy with normal unlimited.
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History (last 6 years or so):
Usnet Server for 3 years: Crapped out for a solid week so I left and went to Newshosting.com
Newshosting.com for 3 years: Crapped out the last 4 days where it hardly works at all (50-100KB/s off and on - long idle periods) |
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djdanska
Premium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Chicago, IL | Your not the only one. I am doing the same thing. I am happy though. I like the retention and ssl.
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When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all. |
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Ryan
join:2001-03-03
Attleboro, MA
 ·Comcast
| reply to Vorpal
Giganews charges a lot, but I admit they put a lot back into maintenance and hardware to make sure everything runs great all the time. IMHO its good if you got the money, but I wouldnt have wasted money on the diamond package unless your isp traffic shapes your connection to the point where you need ssl. 10 connection also is more then plenty especially when using giganews. |
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Vorpal
Premium
join:2002-02-10
Fort Worth, TX
| reply to Vorpal
I'm on AT&T DSL so I thought I might as well get on SSL before that anti-piracy snooping crap goes online. (not that I believe it even has the potential to look through split rar files - although sometimes music downloads are sepeate .mp3 files w/ pars). |
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Ryan
join:2001-03-03
Attleboro, MA
·Comcast
| Honestly Vorpal that wont happen for years. There are also going to be court cases and everything else and by the time it's implemented who knows what the status of newsgroups would be. Heck you never know if isp monitoring was legalized giganews might give ssl away for free. ISP copyright content monitoring is just not realistic and the isp's are not obligated anyway due to a law stating there not responsible.
Anyway..
I think you can always upgrade your plan at anytime anyways. Just a thought to save you 60 dollars a year anyway. |
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djdanska
Premium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Chicago, IL
 ·A + Net
·Mediacom
·RCN CABLE
 ·T-Mobile US
| reply to Vorpal
I know i don't have to use ssl, since i think rcn (my provider) doesn't do anything with newsgroups. But, if i use ssl, they can't tell what i download.. Right? If i don't use ssl, and use a normal newsgroup connection, could they if they wanted to, tell what i was downloading?
I am probably just a bit too paranoid. 
Just trying to figure out how this works.
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When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all. |
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Ryan
join:2001-03-03
Attleboro, MA
·Comcast
| reply to Vorpal
Heres the deal right now even if a copyright group found you downloading something they cant touch you. Every lawsuit is related to SHARING not downloading. Also its illegal for them to sniff packets like that so it wouldnt hold up in court. ISP technically is not supposed to monitor your connection either (as of now) and really they wouldnt want to implement the resources to do so especially where their not even held liable for what you download.
Yes I suppose they might be able to see what your downloading if they put the resources into monitoring your connection like that, but they cant really do anything about it. Also I am sure you have visited a website containing copyrighted material or warez. Even a site like rapidshare is essentially no different then downloading from a nonssl newsgroup connection. SSL is just overkill right now unless like I said your isp is slowing your connection. Beleive me you will hear about it if any of these things change. It would hit every news site and tech site including the front page here at dslr. I cant predict the future, but we will know long in advance if we would need to start using ssl connections. |
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djdanska
Premium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Chicago, IL | Thanks for the explanation. That helps a lot. I am still in my newbie stage with usenet. But, highly enjoying using it.
Much appreciated!
dan |
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Bark
join:2006-03-19
Grand Junction, CO
| reply to Vorpal
Paying for convenience, or not.
My ISP (Qwest) goes to the trouble of maintaining their own news server, so the files are hosted on their own network a few hops away. Thus all of the NNTP traffic between me and my ISP's news server is limited to their network. It doesn't make sense that Qwest would want to eavesdrop on my in-network inbound traffic and trap me for what I download entirely from their own servers.
I don't use SSL. I have access to UseNetServer (UNS) and Giganews but don't use them very often. |
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kamm
join:2001-02-14
Brooklyn, NY
 ·Packet8
| reply to Ryan
Re: Giganews - Just signed up. Am I stupid?
said by Ryan  :Giganews charges a lot, but I admit they put a lot back into maintenance and hardware to make sure everything runs great all the time. IMHO its good if you got the money, but I wouldnt have wasted money on the diamond package unless your isp traffic shapes your connection to the point where you need ssl. 10 connection also is more then plenty especially when using giganews. QFT |
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kalone
join:2002-07-02
Lexington, KY | reply to Vorpal
Me stupid too! Just get sick of saving a buck for something that may or may not work. Tried NH, NHXL,UNS(top of the up and down list), Powerusenet which it good but it can be slow sometimes. |
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jmorlan
Crescit Eundo
join:2001-02-05
Pacifica, CA | reply to Vorpal
In my opinion, you are definitely not stupid.
You signed up with a class act. |
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kamm
join:2001-02-14
Brooklyn, NY
·Packet8
| reply to Ryan
said by Ryan :Heres the deal right now even if a copyright group found you downloading something they cant touch you. Every lawsuit is related to SHARING not downloading. Also its illegal for them to sniff packets like that so it wouldnt hold up in court. ISP technically is not supposed to monitor your connection either (as of now) and really they wouldnt want to implement the resources to do so especially where their not even held liable for what you download. Yes I suppose they might be able to see what your downloading if they put the resources into monitoring your connection like that, but they cant really do anything about it. Also I am sure you have visited a website containing copyrighted material or warez. Even a site like rapidshare is essentially no different then downloading from a nonssl newsgroup connection. SSL is just overkill right now unless like I said your isp is slowing your connection. Beleive me you will hear about it if any of these things change. It would hit every news site and tech site including the front page here at dslr. I cant predict the future, but we will know long in advance if we would need to start using ssl connections. QFT again - SSL and all these gimmicks are nothing but good marketing tools to make people pay 2x more for the same service.
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dekks
join:2004-12-08
Acton, MA
| reply to Vorpal
Has anyone had experience with both newshosting and giganews and able to give a pro/con for each one?
I'm not overly worried about connection speed as my isp throttles between 4pm-1am (and yes I am looking to switch) so I only queue D/Ls overnight, but recently I've found that Newshosting seems to timeout for the first 5-10 minutes of something being queued before it'll start downloading.
I've also had quite a few times recently where I've downloaded something 50-60 days old (still within my 70 days retention package) but several articles are missing whereas friends on other usenet providers have been able to download complete articles no problem.
There's nothing more frustrating then to get a 9 gig download, only to find that several of the rars are corrupt and blocks are missing even with a full par set.
I've been with newshosting for several years and up until a few months ago totally satisfied, so I'm hoping these are just a couple of hiccups for them, but that said, I'm start to consider other options. |
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eX_NihiLo
Here's Your Something For Nothing
Premium
join:2003-08-05
Louisville, CO
·Comcast
edit:
May 5th, @09:03PM
| reply to Vorpal
I've been using NGroups.Net for about 6 months now on their $9.99 a month deal. Occasionally get missing .rars but I use an old block acct at Astranews to fill them out. If it gets worse I'll probably move entirely to Astranews. I don't need the retention that Giganews provides so I'm happy with a cheaper option.
Edit: AstraWeb not Astranews |
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jmorlan
Crescit Eundo
join:2001-02-05
Pacifica, CA
·Pacific Bell - SBC
| Do you mean Astraweb?
Astraweb is claiming 122+ days of retention. Giganews claims to be at 200 days.
I have a block account with Astraweb which I use for fills and I think it's a good value. But frankly, I'm not seeing 122 days of retention in some of the larger groups.
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If America has an official philosophy, it surely includes the belief in individualism, competition, private property, democracy, freedom, and a deep faith in education. This social philosophy is called "liberalism." GKM (1936) |
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eX_NihiLo
Here's Your Something For Nothing
Premium
join:2003-08-05
Louisville, CO | Sorry you are correct its Astraweb. I think I saw a post here that said AstraWeb had server problems a while back so long retention may have been affected for them. |
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brianiscool
join:2000-08-16
Miami, FL | reply to Vorpal
lol You could of bought another internet connection for that price and have double the bandwidth. |
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Doctor Four
My other vehicle is a TARDIS
Premium
join:2000-09-05
Dallas, TX
 ·AT&T U-Verse
·RoadRunner Cable
·AT&T Yahoo
| reply to Vorpal
You really don't need SSL unless your ISP throttles or
blocks NNTP (Usenet) traffic.
Giganews is a little on the steep side, price-wise. But what
you get in return (200 day retention, reliability and
completeness, as well as being able to fully take advantage
of your line's max. speed) may be worth it.
I've been with them since Oct 2002, and on their unlimited
$24.99 plan since around 2005.
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"The trouble with computers, of course, is that they are very sophisticated idiots." - Doctor Who (from Robot)
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unoriginal
join:2000-07-12
San Diego, CA
·DSL EXTREME
| reply to Vorpal
Do you need 200 days of retention? If not consider powerusenet instead. They resell Giganews and give me 105 days of retention for $15/mo ($10 first 2 mo while you try it out) instead of $25. Only downside is that they dont allow posting on any of their accts, but I dont really care about that as I only download. |
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