For a few weeks now since switching to VM's usenet service (from giganews after speed problems) when I found out that vm had outsourced their servers to easynews i've been running a few dl tests to see what you do & don't get from vm's new servers as their seems to be a lot of confusion.
VM Usenet Key Points:
1. The
header retention is 7 days.
2. The
data retention is 100 days.
(I've personally downloaded several tv episodes that were 98 days old)
I've tried movies, music, games & tv and found that the completion is excellent (only had to use pars once in 50+ dl's) & retention to be solid.
However there is one area that
DOES NOT conform to the above rules & that is
pr0n! When you want to dl pr0n you're basically going to find it very hit & miss.
During my "research" I found that it was basically 50/50 as to whether or not the pr0n item in question was carried at all regardless of group used.
One area that was particularly poor was clips. Here I found that the chances of getting what you were after dropped to about 70/30
against.
Top Tips for VM usenet service:
1. If you likes you some Pr0n then look elsewhere (99% of people here
).
2. To overcome the short headers retention period you need to use a nzb service.
(I use Newzbin:
http://v3.newzbin.com , and haven't actually used headers in over 3 years).
There we are. Pr0n lovers should look elsewhere but those of us who don't buy kleenex in bulk from wholesalers actually have a decent & above all
free usenet service from VM (that is until they decide to f**k it up somehow).