Re: binary newsgroups on NTL
 

I would be happy with what I used to have from ntl.
I am no dvd image downloader, if I like the movie and I want to have it, I prefer to buy an original DVDwith superior quality. So, I was sutisfied with ntl's service.

Re: binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Me too, its MP3s and RPG pdfs i look for and i could keep up easily.

binary newsgroups still dead
 

Anyone any ideas when this problem will be fixed, status pages said last week it was sorted, but still dead here.

Re: binary newsgroups still dead
 

Some of them are working for me - they only seem to update overnight though, but that's better than nothing.

Re: binary newsgroups on NTL
 

well i signed up with astraweb in the end.. they quite good but alot slower than the NTL ones

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

astraweb is a little slower than the NTL binaries, but for the price I suppose you cant complain. Overall as im not a DVD downloader im happy, but worse off each month moneywise because of NTL.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

What do you mean slower?

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Ill explain, Ive chosen the $10 option, probably referred to by"powermongers" as the "cheap and nasty option". I can get 8 connections to it though, giving me an average download speed of 85k/s (less connections was slower, so i decided on all 8). On NTL i got a slightly better speed, when NTL increse their speed ill still get 85k/s though cos im running at maximum speed the server allows.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Uhm. I think I understand..not sure.
I have seen there two unlimited options, 10 and 15$. 15 is unlimited traffic and speed, and 10 - unlimited traffic but limited speed - 600Kbps, correct?
Have you chosen the latter one? Then it was your choise. I am going to subscribe to astra 10$ unlimited/600 tomorrow.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

thats the one im on, as long as you dont want to leech at full ntl bandwith 24/7 it should be fine for you.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

http://news.astraweb.com/plans.html

I thought the "pay by download" at $10 per 25Gb (unlimited speed/connections) - and a tiny bit cheaper if you buy a bigger chunk, looked pretty good.

http://news.astraweb.com/downloadplans.html - Check the FAQ

- No time limits
- No connection limits
- No censoring
- No monitoring
- No posting limits
- No expiry date on your credits
- Headers are not counted towards your downloads

Even better, unless you are seriously going to average >= 25Gb per month of article bodies

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

$8.95
1gb a day - you can go over, just when you logout say, you've used 6gb you are off for 5 days.
24 day retention binaries/160 text (10 days on astraweb? :D)
No dl limits - i max out

Re: binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Perhaps you should of joined www.newshosting.com with over 30days retention and maxes my 1.5meg connection.;) as I mentioned earlier in the post, way better than Astranews, and im not biased as ive tried both.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

It is not really slower.

Astra just has got two options for users while newshosting only one.
They both have unlimited traffic withunlimited speed for 15$.
However, astra offers one more option for just 10$, which is unlimited traffic with 600kbps connection.
If you have 1.5M line and you want to use it to a full extent, then this option is not suitable for you. But if you have 750K or slower line, 600kbps is almost perfect, because doesn't matter how fast is your news server, you cannot download faster than your broad band package allows, which is the case with 750K.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Its OK if you must have the files as fast as possible, but with 10-15 days retention, getting them a bit slower but cheaper seemed a more logical option to me, but I guess a "one size fits all" NEVER fits all so you need a selection of deals!

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Uhm, I have just realised that my nick is astra_lestat. Believe me, it has nothing to do with astra news!!! Just a pure coinsidence. I didn#t even know about this service before someone has mentioned it on this forum.
When NTL's news went down I was considering www.corenews.com . They offer unlimited speed with daily 2G cap for 10$.
After I join astra tomorrow I might not like it after all :)

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

seems astraweb is the popular choice atm, it certainly is good value compared to some more popular news providers.

Unlike NTL, astraweb (probably like most news servers) has some VERY illegal picture groups, dont even look at the contents, no doubt they are monitered as to who downloads what, I found out by accident using a grabit search for something not even picture related.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Hi,

Have a look here, it's an interesting read. http://www.newsgroupservers.net/
Please note the bit about Corenews at the very bottom.

I must admit over the past 6 months I found NTL great for retention and completion, at the mo all incompletes or "post purged" when I try to download. I hope it gets back to normal soon!!

All the best
Peacemaker

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Thanks a lot for a great link!

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

it says astraweb isnt so good, we will have to see i guess, its good so far though :) fortunatly paying month-by-month lets you go elsewhere if it sux

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

I agree with you. It is not smart to subscribe to unknown providers for an year in order to save a few quids. You may loose more in the end. Monthly paiment is acceptable as trial period. Who knows, maybe ntls server will be back in a month? :)

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

I suspect the NTL binaries will return when the cap starts this month.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

I've seen quite a few bad astraweb reviews, off the top of my head i can remember one rating was 2/5. I would use ntls binaries, but they don't seem to have the lossless audio groups :/

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

They had 3.
But who cares if they do not work anyway? :(

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Im having no real probs with astraweb, i get the occasional NOT ON SERVER but if it retries its there and downbloads, the error is maybe cos i have 8 connects (i need all 8 to get the speed!)

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

astranews is great for me miles better than my mates unlimited claranews conenction that we share

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Like many things (cars, clothes etc.), everyone seems to like differant news providers, some people want blinding speeds and will pay anything for this, some want 30 days retention, some want 100% completion, etc. I was very happy with NTL, and Astraweb does seem fine, the problem I mentioned earlier can be worked around, id be happiest with NTL as it was before this started, but short of that, astraweb suits me (i do get more binaries anyhow).

PS to reply to an earlier post; NTL had a lossless newsgroup (or possibly 2), I used to get pink floyd bootlegs from them (and then converted then to MP3).

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

OK. I have just subsribed to astraweb.
Let's see how good they are!

NTL had 3 groups with lossless
one apes only, one with both apes and flacs and there was another one I think. I don't remember the names because I didn't use them.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

heres some astraweb hints i have to share (from experiance so far), this is for the budget $10 option, may be differant for other options.

Leech on as many connects as u can, as the more u use the more speed u seem to get (unlike some news servers).

If you start getting silly errors (NOT ON SERVER, etc) reduce the number of connects, i find dropping to 6 fixes it, this happens at peak times.

If doing a INCREMENTAL UPDATE (or FULL), you may also get strange errors, 6 connects seems to be best rather than 8.

On any errors, the file is probably there, just retry!

This may make it sound like astraweb is cr*p, its not, like anything its a case of learning to use it. Weve sacrificed in price so some small probs are to be expected. I have got everything ive tagged, everything ive wanted is complete too (so far), so i have no real gripes for the price.

hope this helps :)

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Is there any update on this issue now? Just tried a group I use here and it has nothing for the past 6 days, when I know for a fact there has been stuff posted there.....

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Seems like NTL don't know how to fix the problem, or maybe they just don't want to fix it in the hope that people will eventually give up complaining. Or maybe they actually want people to move to other ISPs?

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Just a small report on astraweb.
I don't see any difference in the service. I mean it not worse than NTL.
It has got some 2500 more groups. I use only 2 connection at time and they fill promised 600k completely. No broken parts. Downloaded staff 1 and 2 weeks old. No problem at all.
If NTL repairs their server I will return to it because it is for free :) Otherwise I stay with astraweb and I don't know why some people say that astraweb is bad.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

i have not been able to download off grabit and other servers for a few days now keeps saying article not on server is ntl now playing god as to what we can download now

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Still stuffed, very few posts getting through and all are incomplete.
Tried CS and they still insist that there is no problem.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Why doesn't that surprise me? Maybe its because that's exactly the same as I experenced too.

This issue has been ongoing for nearly a fortnight now and there's still no mention of it on the service status page, and trying to explain that there IS a problem to the monkeys at CS is like talking to a brick wall. In fact - you'd probably get more sense out of a brick wall.

Do NTL actually have any staff left these days who know what they are doing?

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Try ringing technical support instead of customer services.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Actually I've tried that after ringing CS was put through to tech and they informed me that the fault had been fixed and all was ok.
But then that is usual result whenever I have called in past to report a problem.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

They are mistaken then. There is an open fault for binary news feeds. It was initially fixed but Winnersh blew it up.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

And that would be an authorative answer, wonder why it is so difficult for NTL to just inform its customers instead of us having to constantly trawl for scraps of info, I thought the status page was explicitly created to keep us informed, but it seems that NTL are selective in what they want us to know, or just can't be bothered.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

no comment

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

its gonna get worse folks ntl is going thru the we dont give a toss stage again this is due to all the changes going on within the company nobody likes change and job losses ,i hope it all settles down soon before they totally knacker any good faith and feelng that customers have

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

They seem to have updated the Service Status:

A WEEK!!, blimey! Hope when they change my STB I don't get last weeks programmes coming through :disturbd:

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

[QUOTE=Web-Junkie]They seem to have updated the Service Status:


At last a response from NTL.
The communications company that has difficulty communicating.
Another week eh, well that is no problem, now that we know.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Don't go cracking open the champagne just yet, we are talking NTL here! Considering they said it was "fixed" last week should be enough to treat any statement they make on this matter with utter conte.... err... caution :)

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Its been "fixed" twice now and a week later thay say thats for some insane reason will take another week to catch up, in reality may take a couple of hours or so. bizarre!

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

It ain't nowhere near fixed as there are still no posts showing up and this has been the story since 22nd, I doubt whether the problem will be sorted before end of march, but at least NTL have tried a little communicating via status page (after many complaints here and elsewhere) so all we can do now is the usual wait and see, patience is a necessary virtue of NTL customers, as those who have tried CS already know.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Astraweb as a newsfeed is a inexpensive option until its fixed (if it ever is), it cost me £5.51 for unlimited 1 month, ill review the ntl situation bofore my months up and see if i need to stay with astraweb. A fiver is better that waiting!

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

I use Astraweb anyway rather than rely on NTL, it's like waiting for Labour to deliver on their manifesto when they got elected :/

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Just had a look in a regular group I use and there are posts dating back from a couple of days ago through to today - not sure if complete list. They are all incomplete mind. Depends how they are going about re-populating the servers, guess that there is an extreme amount of data to come through so expecting it to happen in a few hours might be somewhat hopeful.

As for communication, bit of a joke - anyone would think that they had just discovered that fault according to the status page entry.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Took over 24h to admit the binaries fault the first time too, I suspect its so faults appear to be fixed quickly on the ntl homepage

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

The thing that makes me laugh is when you ring NTL up to report a fault and they tell there isn't one, HELLO!! that's why i'm ringing you up to TELL you there is a fault, DUH!!!

Imagine telling them it was raining when you made the call and they told you that you must be mistaken as it wasn't raining where they were and therefore you must be wrong :)

Life would be pretty boring without NTL though, bless em.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

I often wonder about the legality of ISPs having newsgroups on their servers that contain copyright material. From what I understand the ISP is not responsible for material that is requested by a customer but could be liable for copyright material stored on its servers that nobody has requested.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

I've always wondered about that too, in fact i've always wondered about the whole legality of all newsgroup servers' binaries.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Lets think about newsgroup providers such as giganews etc., they sell access to pirate material, if they could have be prosecuted for supplying such, im sure they already would have been, so I assume they cant be touched, why can they prosecute file sharers, the original napster, but not news providers?

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

There does seem to be an improvement today, lets hope it continues.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

ill give it a week or so and then check it out, NTL are the real losers here though, internal bandwith is free, external isnt.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

After earlier post it has returned to incomplete and no posts, must have been a temporary lapse into normality on the part of NTL.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

It may be a header problem?

I downloaded some headers with Newsbin yesterday and got mostly complete posts, then I tried Agent today and the same posts are all incomplete, yet I can still download the files using the headers stored in Newsbin from yetsreday (plus a few fills from Astraweb), even though I have deleted/redownload the headers in Agent and see the same files all incomplete again!

Maybe the servers headers/bodies are not fully synchronized yet!

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

The answer to this is AIUI from the american perspective as this is where most of the NSP's are: That the NSP's provide a service ie: Usenet access. Nothing more, nothing less. The fact that some content takes up large amounts of space is not of interest to them. They are only concerned about keeping the service running and providing the best service they can provide.

As to the reasons why they haven't been prosecuted, well the truth is they have. But unlike p2p or any of the other types of filesharing, there isn't one particular server to chase down. You make a post to usenet asking a question say, in the same way you would on this forum. It is then immediately sent to thousands of other servers. Some private, others public, some open, some closed. From the moment you press that button, its distributed accross the board to all of them. That message is then imediately available to a large number of people millions or billions is anyones guess. If one of the servers falls over, you can use another. Unlike this forum, which is only available on 2 or 3 servers I imagine.

Not only that, but the one thing you don't mess with in the states is BIG business and these companies make serious money. Some will fight, some will not. But if things come to a head. As US citizens they can fall back on the "freedom of speach", "freedom of information" acts. They are allowed to share information of any type that they like, the files on the servers are just data, it isn't untill they are reconstructed that anything can be made out of them, if anything at all.

As far as most providers are concerned, they are just large essays\rants\raves\discussions\digital photos\shareware\freeware and a whole host of other traffic. They act as carriers for raw data. What's more, they have this acknowledged under one of their laws, so they aren't liable for anything, provided that should something come to their attention that shouldn't be on one of their servers, they remove it. Which they do. So for the most part they are left alone. That is unless you were to post\download anything that relates to adult behaviour towards children. In which case the gloves are off and even the largest of the nsp's will aid the authorities in tracking those that make\use such material available.

As for how the UK deals with usenet. You will need to look up Godfrey vs Demon Internet through google. AFAICT UK isp's are deemed to be carriers as well and act in much the way as the US nsp's do when advised of questionable content by a copyright holder.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Well after watching all this for news on the newsgroup fiasco.I had to join and throw my 1/2 pence in...........it's up, it's not, it is, it's not.....today it was, (1630 GMT), now it's not (1900 GMT), just old posts that are not available. If I wanted 'ping pong' I would get a table tennis table, if I wanted a 'yo yo' I would buy one, I got an ISP, that frankly has it's head up a donky

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Great answer, very informative, thanx :)

A friend once posted a divx movie onto the binaries via a NTL newsserver, and within a day was threateded with disconnection etc. You have to have a pay newsserver to get away with it.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

:erm: Not wanting to put the cat amongst the pigeon's again, as things were gradually getting back to normal. But, today I notice not only some of the binary groups aren't updated, but also some of the text groups too.

:rolleyes:

Lets hope its just a glitch.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

NTL should drop the binary newsgroups and keep the text ones.

You can deny it til the cows come home, they are full of nothing but illegal material and kiddy porn.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

How would you know that? Have you visited these porno kiddy groups and looked at pics?


I for sure, have never ever done that, I even didn't know about it. You should not as well.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

So is the INTERNET itself , so nothing new there! NTL should drop internet access too then by your reckoning!

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

We should also stop using Windows or Linux as well because these OSs are the means for accessing illegal staff.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

[QUOTE]We should also stop using Windows or Linux as well because these OSs are the means for accessing illegal staff.


NICE ONE

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Excuse my stupidity, but how do I access ntl newsgroups?

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

I'm at work atm, so can't give precise instructions (we use Notes here, not Outlook Express), but in essence it is the same as adding a new email account

i.e. in Outlook Express in the 'accounts' dialog, choose 'add' & 'news' - DO NOT put your actual e-mail address as the 'reply' addy, use a made up one, the server name when requested is news.ntlworld.com.

- once the details are entered you will be invited to download the group headers.

Hope that makes sense :)

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Or you could just click news://text.news.ntlworld.com it should, assuming Outlook Express is installed on the users system. Invoke OE and present them with the newsserver address.

If OE isn't installed on the system. Then they could email "news://text.news.ntlworld.com" - without the quotes " " obviously, to themselves and click on the link in OE and it will activate the news portion of the program.

Also, you don't just "make an address up" as there is a high probability that you will choose a address or domain name that someone owns ie: me@home.com or me@theoffice.co.uk for instance are all taken. So infact, you should advise that a user creates a "disposable" ie: hotmail or yahoo address and input that into the requested email field.

Once the server address is entered, the user will receive a popup "You are not subscribed to any newsgroups in this account. Would you like to view a list of newsgroups?". Press "Ok", and a group download will begin. Once complete, you are given the option of subscribing to various groups.

In the "Display newsgroups which contain" type something like "politics", "computers" or "ntl" and a list of groups containing those words shall be displayed. The user can then double click the groups they are interested in, or highlight the group names and click "subscribe". Once they have made their choices to the groups which they subscribe, the click on "Ok" and the group names shall appear on the left side of the screen under their email accounts.

The user can then click on the group name ie: "ntl.announce", and download the headers for that group. Once that has completed, they can view the group content by highlighting a subject line in much the same way as they would view their email using OE.

One important factor to consider is that you need to "lurk" in groups before posting into them. Make yourself aware of how the groups operate, not to mention familiarise yourself with how posts are made ie: Highlight a group, File\New News Post and enter the relevant details as you would an email. If you get a reply to a post you made, you can then further contribute to a "thread" or discussion by highlighting the relevant subject header, right click, select "Reply to Group". When typing your message, reply at the bottom, not the top. Failure to familiarise yourself with such group conventions usually results in a user getting "flamed" which equates to being insulted. If the user refuses to change their ways, after being flamed the next thing that can happen is a report is sent to their ISP or NSP so they can warn the user as to what they are doing wrong.

Also worth a mention is. As an OE user, if you want to check or construct an email. Be sure to highlight the "Inbox" as otherwise you will still be in News Mode, which could be embarassing if you accidentaly send a private correspondence to a friend but it ends up on a newsserver instead.

All the above uses OE, which whilst not the most ideal newsgroup client, will give a user an introduction on how usenet and newsgroups work from a "text" perspective. If they want more on how the binaries aspect works, then google for "usenet downloading" and all your questions will be answered..

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Fair point, the important thing is not to have your real e-mail address associated with a news account.;)

Very good informative post :tu:

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

went for xnews :p:

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Shows you are ill informed and never use the NTL binaries, NTL happily dont carry any of the child porn groups, however most of the pay newsservers do.

BTW NTL have a text only news server.
__________________

I think all OSs allow access to such, the only real solution is to disconnect your PC from the internet perminantly, a further tip is to dig a small hole in the garden and bury your head in it.



Anyone have an new NTL binaries news? Is it worth trying again?

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

What exactly can you get off ntl newsgroups ?

I followed the instructions goblin posted but I was under the impression you could download stuff from these newsgroups however all the groups I subcribed to just look like forums but in email format.

Forgive my stupidity :)

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

ok now that you have it setup in Outlook go to list of the newsgroups i.e right click the account you setup and select newsgroups..leave the tab on all and type in binaries.. you can then see all the groups that contact binaries.. i.e files you can download..

some will be in yenc format which outlook can't decode though..

yes alot of the groups are just like forums and are text only.. they cover most topics you can think off and quite a few you couldn't even imagine :Yikes:

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

The newsgroups you pay for are legal then I take it ? And what kind of stuff can you get off the services you pay for ?

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

outlook is ok for viewing the text news, but if you want the binaries (mp3s, warez, etc) your best off with something reliable and easy to use, Grabit from www.shemes.com is very good, its freeware and very good, it even has a search :)

anyone have and ntl binaries news? is it working yet?
__________________

mp3s, images, porn, console gamer, pc games, utilities, anything you can imagine appears there (and some things you cant!)

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Is there anyone to search through the groups you join as Its only listing 300 headers I think.

So are the paid for services actually legal or are the feds going to bust through my windows when I download an mp3 ?

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

The vast majority are illegal and yes they may come busting in if you download certain content.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

I dont get it, why do people pay to use a service thats illegal ?

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

it's a bit of a grey area, afaik, Ian - the ISP can not be prosecuted due to being considered the 'common carrier'.

the chances of anyone being monitored online are pretty slim (although ISP's are supposed to keep logs of groups visited, I don't think they monitor individual message downloads???).

where the illegality comes in is storing, copying or distributing any 'dodgy' content.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

I cant understand how you download things from these emails full of random text.

I must be retarded.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Lookup info on a utility called yEnc - I think that's what's used to put the original data back together.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

some of then may appear like that due to yEnc encoding, you need to use a different mail client than Outlook Express to view these, easily.

otherwise they have been chopped up into chunks - you should see they appear in 'groups' with the same filename & 'part 1 of 7' etc.

- to get these highlight all the messages in the 'group' (CTRL & left click on each one) - then right click on the selection & choose 'combine & decode' from the context menu. Once decoded choose the option to 'save attachments' & bob is your fathers brother.

Once you've done this a few times, you will see why heavy users of newsgroups use a news client that sorts all that out for them - as well as Yenc.

- and we havn't started on rar & par files yet :)

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

It is a grey area and I am puzzled why ISPs are allowed to get away with it. ISPs are not liable for content that is requested by a customer and which passes through them to that customer. Proxies which cache the content could be said to have stored data that hasn't been requested because the original customer has got the file direct from the original site. Newsgroups are rather different because strictly speaking the content has not been requested by anyone.

The police do monitor newsgroups and certain sites, in particular those that are showing sexually explicit photos of underage subjects.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

So, what's up?

Are NTL's binaries back and working well now?

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

im having trouble with the binary newsgoups, namely binaries.multimedia, i know it worked on saturday but today i can't update it. i formatted my computer as it was clogged up, now it seems that multimedia wont work...anyone else got this problem?

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

alt.binaries.multimedia currently has 3 headers, dated the 7th March 05 - so it is 'working', but not peering too well ;)

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

over the last couple of days i grabbed a 6gb anime series from a.b.m.anime, refreshing the group works fine as well.

i'm quite pleased with my ntl service :)

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

if you use the newsreader newsbinpro you can use multiple news servers at the same time another try news.virgin.net as this has quite a good selection

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Same here... Also alt.binaries.tv seems to have gone

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Anyone had experience with www.usenetserver.com if so what do you think of them with regard to speed/retention/completion.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Is it nntp? if so is it the first time you would have used one???

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

I'm looking at trying out their unlimited news groups service and was wondering if they are any good. I currently use claranews which has been awful lately so I've been using giganews and newshosting. I'm happy with newshosting but usenetserver offer the same service for the same price and I'd like to know how they compare.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

If you sign up for a month and use newsbin pro for example which allows you to run off 2 or more servers you can compare :)

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Quite a few of my friends use newshosting.com and have had EXCELLENT results through it.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

I've been with usenetserver for over a year now and to answer the 3 questions :

Superb, ALWAYS maxes out my 3mb NTL connection/
around 21 days in binary newsgroups, varies though/
Used to be incredibly good, seems to have tailed off a bit recently (still advertised as 97%+ and I can believe that TBH) but nothing a par or 2 can't fix :)

Unlimited downloads too, superb support and communications (NTL could learn alot here) and only $39.99 (£21) every 3 months, highly recommended

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Thanks that's the info I was after :)

I signed up for another month with newshosting because I did a search on the net for connection speeds to usenetserver and the info I found reported that the max connection was 2mb. By your account it isn't so I might give them a try next month, however, newshosting is very good.

DL from NTL newservers
 

a few of my mates use these servers to download stuff such as mp3,movie,etc but im a bit weary as to why ntl lets them do it as its against piracy and all and if i do it will i get caught for dl

Re: DL from NTL newservers
 

grey area - NTL provide the newsgroups on a 'common carrier' basis. That means it is not illegal to download messages - but, you are subsequently liable for what you do with the download. If it is copyright, or illegal for other reasons, then you can be prosecuted for storing or distributing it, but not by NTL.