S. Africa Based Usenet Server Launch

swintec said:
Hi All-
I have owned Frugal Usenet / Blocknews for almost 20 years now. Some of you may be customers now or maybe in the past (or maybe we have interacted elsewhere in various Usenet related forums and such over the years) but the last 1.5 years we have been putting Usenet servers in far away (for us) lands that have been ignored by other usenet services since....forever, to see how we can do. "If we build it they will come" type thing I guess?

I like to think that maybe local usenet is better usenet for various reasons.

Long story short, we started with Australia and made our way around to other continents and Africa was the holdout, but not anymore (at least you guys beat Antarctica right?).

New or existing users can now access it if they wish, connection info is in the documentation for each service. Due to local presence now, will hang out here more to assist when I can either through posting or private messages or you can always email with issues (or love letters).
Click to expand...
Cant type out South Africa in heading but has verbal diarrhea in the content
 
Harbinger of Death said:
So it is indeed a better place to get Linux distros from?

I remember Fidonet from decades ago.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily better but different. With a Usenet you are paying for centralised repo with a certain retention period, DL speed and access. With a private tracker its usually free but you have to jump through hoops for many of the popular ones to get and maintain access and its dependent on someone seeding what you want. So it depends on what you are after.
 
B-1 said:
Not necessarily better but different. With a Usenet you are paying for centralised repo with a certain retention period, DL speed and access. With a private tracker its usually free but you have to jump through hoops for many of the popular ones to get and maintain access and its dependent on someone seeding what you want. So it depends on what you are after.
Click to expand...
I assume it would be better for rare old Linux distros, because with torrents I hardly ever have issues getting what I want. Even then, I don't use that very often. I'm not sure what hoops you are referring to? (serious question lol)
 
Harbinger of Death said:
I assume it would be better for rare old Linux distros, because with torrents I hardly ever have issues getting what I want. Even then, I don't use that very often. I'm not sure what hoops you are referring to? (serious question lol)
Click to expand...
  1. start linux vm and login
  2. start vpn
  3. start torrent app in a jail
  4. start browser in a jail
  5. find and copy link(s) for torrent(s)
  6. paste / add in torrent client
  7. click download
7 hoops. the horror?

edit:
When it's not on streaming and I do stream a lot - few "rare" edge cases.
 
Harbinger of Death said:
I assume it would be better for rare old Linux distros, because with torrents I hardly ever have issues getting what I want. Even then, I don't use that very often. I'm not sure what hoops you are referring to? (serious question lol)
Click to expand...

The public trackers are freeleech so have no hoops but you often get fake files or files with viruses and the retention can be bad so outside of the popular stuff its not great.

A step up from that is private invite only trackers where you have to maintain certain ratios, retention periods and all sorts of things. Some make it quite hard unless you are an uploader of files and very active.

Then you of course have Usenet where you pay for the convenience.
 
DrJohnZoidberg said:
$60 a year isn't bad.

I'm using a Newshosting subscription which I've had an amazing deal with for the past 2 years for only $44/year. Not sure if that would go up this year though (likely).
Click to expand...
I'm still on their $30 unlimited lifetime plan. What a bargain - will probably never move
 
There are still quite a few using the text discussion groups like the "old days"....with the state of the internet and social media these days, it is probably the direction we should be heading. Anonymous, decentralized and no analytics being done to sell your behavior and habits to advertisers and big corps (I realize the irony of this while I reply here in a forum) but i cant help but think over these last few years, the type of discussion platform we all yearn for has been right under our noses this entire time but we use reddit and facebook and the like for convenience i guess. There are definitely some small hurdles to get over before usenet can be truly resurrected but i like to think they can be over come.
 
Herr der Verboten said:
  1. start linux vm and login
  2. start vpn
  3. start torrent app in a jail
  4. start browser in a jail
  5. find and copy link(s) for torrent(s)
  6. paste / add in torrent client
  7. click download
7 hoops. the horror?

edit:
When it's not on streaming and I do stream a lot - few "rare" edge cases.
Click to expand...

You are doing it wrong.

Have automation do it all for you, no clicking and copy and pasting required.

Also no VPS,VM,VPN required either but everyone has a tin foil hat.
 
Herr der Verboten said:
  1. start linux vm and login
  2. start vpn
  3. start torrent app in a jail
  4. start browser in a jail
  5. find and copy link(s) for torrent(s)
  6. paste / add in torrent client
  7. click download
7 hoops. the horror?

edit:
When it's not on streaming and I do stream a lot - few "rare" edge cases.
Click to expand...
LMAO.

I simply start a browser, find torrent, download in qbittorrent. Very easy.

Then again, only video files.
 
swintec said:
There are still quite a few using the text discussion groups like the "old days"....with the state of the internet and social media these days, it is probably the direction we should be heading. Anonymous, decentralized and no analytics being done to sell your behavior and habits to advertisers and big corps (I realize the irony of this while I reply here in a forum) but i cant help but think over these last few years, the type of discussion platform we all yearn for has been right under our noses this entire time but we use reddit and facebook and the like for convenience i guess. There are definitely some small hurdles to get over before usenet can be truly resurrected but i like to think they can be over come.
Click to expand...

The younger generations don't seem to mind. They will give their first born to the ai overlords in exchange for access to the systems.
 
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