cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/6240929

I’m a pretty heavy torrent user, running a media server complete with sonarr/radarr for automatic downloads. I download a lot, and have multiple TBs of upload on various private trackers. I’ve been torrenting forever, but I’ve always wondered about usenet. Over and over on this, and other, forums I see people saying that usenet is way better - but why?

I understand what it is overall, but what makes it better than traditional torrenting? In my mind, it’s always just seemed like a different means to the same end. I pay for a VPN and torrent for “free”, or I pay for usenet access and download directly from there. As someone who’s “snobby” around the quality of the stuff I torrent, does usenet provide an advantage there?

Usenet fans, I’d love to hear what makes you love it! I’m always open to trying new things, and if It really is better I’d love to know why! (Plus, maybe what providers/tools etc you recommend).

  • ChewyEnglish
    8•1 year ago

    It’s simpler to get onto good indexers for german media on usenet than it is to find a private tracker and get into it.

    Also, my upload is slow so I’d have to use a seedbox to torrent on private trackers instead of using my homeserver.

    I like P2P filesharing more than usenet since it’s decentralized. Most usenet providers with long retention are owned by only a few parent companies which is never good in the long term. As long as private VPN’s are allowed torrenting can’t be stopped.

    On usenet with my indexer I find dual language 1080p remuxes for most movies, so I’d say the quality is as good as it can be. But this is probably also the case with a good private tracker.

    If your already on private trackers that have all the media you want I really don’t see any advantage to usenet.

    As for tools, it’s mostly the same as with torrenting. The arr* stack supports usenet, it just downloads with sabnzbd instead of qbittorrent (or your preferred client).