Playing Catch-Up

Just to help those of you that are in the dark concerning this issue, the FBI took the massive file-sharing facility offline on the 31st of January. Their claim is that MegaUplaod facilitates piracy, and goes as far as rewarding and compensating their biggest contributors in the copyright infringements. Officials in several countries cooperated in the bust, and in the end, cars, televisions, bank acounts, and all the other assets that were considered gained from the unscrupulous sevice had been seized…along with all the servers and mountains of data contained on them.

Law Abiding Citizens

When this event got started, there were a lot of members that cried “Foul!” And rightfully so. Amont the Petabytes of data that was confiscated are the files of many individuals and companies that weren’t breaking any laws in any of the ways that the FBI is concerned with. What about their data, they wanted to know if they would be able to recover it. As it turns out, the may be able to…

Early Reports Scared Many

The early reports surrounding this fiasco was that the data could be destroyed as early as Thursday Feb 2nd. But those reports were a little premature. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, EFF, went to bat for the MegaUpload customers. The Department of Justice finished up with their recording of the data they needed and turned the physical servers back over to the owners, Carpathia Hosting, and Cogent communications.

Can’t Pay The Bills

Because of the freeze on their accounts the owners of MegaUpload aren’t able to pay the lease, adn rightfully the servers must be cleared and prepared for the next company that wants to lease the space. But Carpathia has partnered with the EFF and created a website, megaretrieval.com, and they have declared that the data would be safe for the moment. In their initial statement they said that 7 days notice would be given publicly before the servers are wiped.

What To Do

As of this writing, there wasn’t a total solution to exactly how your data could be recovered, but there are links on the site so you caan e-mail the EFF and stake your claim to your data. We’re sure that in the end, when the smoke clears, the members that are legitimate, will be provided the opportunity to recover their data. Right now they are looking into methods to filter out the infringing content.

Stay connected to findout the latest on the MegaUpload fiasco. As soon as the word comes out we’ll let you know how to recover your data, if you have been affected by this tragedy. To learn more about Usenet, one of the safest ways to share your content, check out our reviews and tutorials at UsenetReviews. We would also love to hear from you about this major event in the internet, so send us a Tweet to @usenetreviewz.

SABNzbd Over The Last Year

SABNzbd is a relatively new downloader on the scene, but they came out with a huge splash. And over the course of the last year, they have impressed a lot of the veteran Usenet pros and has become very popular all across the Usenet community. The client is completely configurable, everything from download speeds to SSL. And speaking of security, Ipv6 is also supported. Here are a few more of the more pertinent details on this outstanding downloader:

• Open sourced…free, and supported by a huge community of users.
• Every OS and many mobile devices support it.
• Installer comes in 6 languages.
• Web based…works anywhere or on anything that can operate Chrome or Firefox.
• Unpacking and repairing is automatic, and can be configured.
• Security from SSL and the client supports Ipv6.
• Support for Binsearch, Newzbin, NZBMatrix, and a lot of other indexes.
• Remote controllers available.

SABNzbd In Our News

SABNzbd has managed to catch our eye several times this year. Along with their newness comes an inherent curiosity…at least with us this is the case. If you would like to get a few more of the details on their last year in the news, here are a few links to the blogs:

• NzbdStatus For Firefox: Now Monitor Your SABNzbd Client
• Chrome Users Can Have 1 Button Access To SABNzbd
• SABNzbd On Your Mobile, Here’s Some New Apps To Add

Congratulations SABNzbd

With this downloader being Open Source it only stands to reason that there are a lot of third party add-ons, and the support coming from their forums and tutorials is top caliber, we want to congratulate the entire contributing community, thanks folks for your tireless efforts. We understand it is voluntary, but the things you are providing for free rivals premium paid services, keep it up and this will continue to win awards far into the future. Tell us your thoughts on our awards with a Tweet to @usenetreviewz.

Calling Them Like They See Them

In the initial announcement about the change, spokesperson, Mr. White placed all the blame in the lap of the U.S. laws and the MPA. It seems that U.S. domains are being controlled by the conglomerates. In the statement it said:

“We regret the need to do this but, thanks to the retards in the US Government and the MPA, a ‘.com’ address is no longer viable. Really, any domain controlled by the US government proxy Verisign isn’t viable.”

“For the next couple of weeks we are undertaking preparations for the move. We will switch shortly after that. For legal reasons the defunct ‘newzbin.com’ page will not do any redirects or give links to the new sites. If you wish you can start using the .es domain straight away.”

Home Sweet Home

Well in our office, we all changed our bookmarks to reflect the change in domain name. Then went to the new place…it looked and performed just like the old site, perfectly. As in the statement, they did keep the old domain, but as you can see from the screenshot, there’s not much there, and they aren’t doing any kind of forwarding, to prevent any kind of future legal issues. We just deleted the .com and added the .es into our browser address bars, then through the magic of the internet, there they were. Don’t forget to update your bookmarks to reflect the new domain name.

If you would like to know more about newzbin2.es or any of the search indexing services they offer, you can get all the little details in our Newzbin2 Review.

UNS Last 12 Months In Review

Not a lot has happened of note over the last 12 months at UNS except retention increases, but that is good news…at least there weren’t any bad news events. During times like these the developers are busily updating, spooling, and answering the questions of their members…rather mundane work, but necessary none-the-less. Their retention increases brought their retention rates up significantly, and as always they maintain a 99%+ completion rate.

More Details On UNS

We have an outline of their pricing plans here, they did make the cut as the best deal. But there are other things that go along with this distinction, here are a few of the pertinent statistics that we look at in this category, and the UNS offerings:

• High-Speed Plus Plan – $15.98 gets unlimited access, no throttling, and as many as 20 simultaneous connections.
• High-Speed Plan – $13.32 p/mo will get the same as the Plus plan, but you will only have access to 10 concurrent connections.
• 3 Day Plan – Only $3 for 10 concurrent connections, but if you have a need for more speed, you can pay an extra $2 and get another 10 connections.
• 1,249 days of binary retention, and years, (literally,) of text retention.
• Server farms on multiple continents placed on top tier backbones insure only the fastest downloading speeds.
• Free 14 day trial, and a referral program.

Referral Program And Free Trial

Their referral program is something that most Usenet providers don’t have. They will credit your account with $10 if a friend signs up and stays with them for an uninterrupted period of 90 days…nice, huh? And any member can benefit from this, not just specific members or account types. Their 14 day free trial has a 10 GB downloading limit, (doesn’t seem like very much,) but this is a sufficient amount to convince you of their value.

UNS In Our News

Since things have been uneventful for the guys, (and gals,) on their teams of support, and development pros. But at times, no news is good news, and in this case it meant that there wasn’t any time that they couldn’t fully concentrate on their members needs. They did increase retention rates twice in the year, bringing the binary retention to a level that raised the eyebrows of their nearest competitors. Out of sight may mean out of mind for many folks, but for us here at UsenetReviews, it means that there must have been a 100% up-time, and no catastrophic issues that inconvenience their members. And, that is one of the biggest values. To let us know about your thoughts on our award selections, you can Tweet us at @usenetreviewz.

Looking At The Last 12 Months

Since our awards are centered around the last years worth of service, we will give you a quick run down of their advances, and improvements I service. They started out early by eliminating the possibility of your being hijacked by a “Man in the middle” attacks, then moved on to improve on the Mimo Usenet Newsreader. From there they developed their VyprVPN app, upped their retention, and then launched the Dump Truck online storage…Quite the bus little beavers, huh?

A Cadillac Among Usenet Providers

If price isn’t as important as access reliability, speed, and quality of service, then Giganews may be the service that you should go with. Here’s a few of the biggest highlights they provide with their service:

• Free access to VyprVPN for all their members.
• All memberships get access to their Dump Truck online storage service.
• With server locations globally, your download speeds are only limited by you.
• Free Golden Frog Mimo newsreader. Has search integrated with full set of filters, and supports thumbnails.
• 24/7/365 support, 100% uptime, and their 14 day free trial.

Giganews In The News

For the last year we have reported on the updates, upgrades, and improvements of all of the most popular Usenet providers. And, Giganews has had a lot of announcements and news reports on their behalf. If you would like to read a little more of the down and dirty details of the last year for Giganews, here are a few of the best of the tidbits:

• Dump Truck For All – The Latest Giganews Offering
• Giganews Unleashes WebDAV For All OSes And Many Applications
• A New VyprVPN App Is Now Available For Giganews Customers
• Giganews Announces Retention Rate Of More Than 1,200 Days
• Dumptruck Allowing Early Access To Online Storage

There were others that we published, but we thought that you would understand.

Congratulations Giganews

And to all the development, sales, and support teams over at Giganews…you folks have worked long and hard to achieve this milestone. Not to mention all the hard work that has gone behind the reputation that you folks enjoy. A reputation of reliability, friendliness, and being the Cadillac of the Usenet providers pool. Great job guys.

To let us know what you think of our awards, or anything else we have told you about on our site, you can send us a Tweet at @usenetreviewz.

All The While

And while they were doing this, they took care of all of the routine maintenance duties, like updates, improving existing features, and taking care of the support issues and tickets. During the beta period of the client, they took suggestions and comments from the fans, and looked into bug reports…trying to keep their customer happy, and they used the customers suggestions to decide on the features they would add, and what their users liked and wanted the most.

More About Newshosting

At the end of the year, they released the Newshosting Newsreader from bet, and gave the client to their members for free…sort of a Christmeas present. That’s a simplistic run down of the Newshosting 2011 year. Here’s a few of the highlights of their service:

• Their binary retention is at 1,247 days presently.
• Security is insured using industry standard SSL.
• Servers in both U.S. and Europe, guaranteeing fast connections from either continent.
• 100,000+ newsgroups to browse…and adding all the time.
• The free Newshosting Newsreader.
• Prices ranging between $10 p/mo for metered access, up to $15.83 for unlimited access.
• 24/7/365 support.

More On The Newshosting Newsreader

Their partnership with Easynews probably influenced their newsreader in a lot of different ways, as there are many similarities. Many of the same features are there, but the feel of the browser is a little different. Here are a few of the highlights of this Newshosting Newsreader:

• Previewing of your downloads is possible using VLC Player. (Included in the installation.)
• A fully integrated search in the browser, that has a fully featured set of filters.
• Unpacking and repairing of your downloads is automatic. Unpacking to specific locations is also supported.
• Totally free, and very easy to install and configure.

Newshosting In Our News

If you are interested in getting a few more details on the year that Newshosting has had, you can check out a few of the articles and announcements from our pages, and our sister sites, UsenetReviewz.com, pages. Here are a few of them:

• Newshosting Newsreader Client Released – No More Beta Versions
• A New Newshosting Client Released Today, Version 1.1.0
• Newshosting Announces New Client Out Of Beta Testing
• UsenetServer, Newshosting and Easynews Retention Increases
• Newshosting Introduces New Tool To Assist In Account Selection

Congratulations Newshosting…you guys, (and gals,) have really worked hard to get this award, and we the customers, have really reaped the benefits of your efforts. Thanks!

The Awards Roll-Out

We have watched all of the providers over the last 12 months, all the while keeping notes on their performance in several different areas. We have checked out their upgrades, updates, extras, add-ons, and every other little detail. All of these observances will be presented as our Awards series rolls out. We will be announcing an award every few days, so check back to find out if your provider won an award in any of our categories, which are:

• Most Improvement For A Usenet Provider
• The Prime Cut Of Usenet Provider
• Best Bang For The Buck Award
• Stealth And Anonymity Award
• Top Full Featured Newsreader
• Best Small Newsreader
• Top Web-Based NZB Downloader
• NZB Site Of Sites Award
• Number 1 Search Index

More Of What We Take Into Consideration

Since we have a full years worth of data to consider, and all year to think about what we have observed. We watch closely the updates, improvements, number of groups, improvements in retention, VPN services are taken into account, quality of the support and general performance. Another thing we take into account is customer satisfaction and popularity of the service. While these two things are a little harder to measure, they are possibly the most important and are intertwined.

How To Tell Us What You Think

And we do our collective hardest to keep an eye on these factors, and often input from you, our readers, can indicate problems in one area, or spotlight a service for their excellence. You can let us know what you think by simply Tweeting us at @usenetreviewz.

Coming Up For A Vote Soon

On the 24th of January SOPA will stand the test of the vote, and as of now it’s still a little hazy as to which direction this vote will go. On one side there are the MPA and RIAA, with all their money. On the other side there are a lot of internet companies and experts that withdrew their support and joined the fight against the measures a little late in the game. And while this is a very good thing, nothing is guaranteed in Congress. Unless you count the “He who has the most money wins.” And with that consideration, the outlook becomes even more hazy.

Bill Drafters Busted Pirating

We have shown you here that there are all kinds of illegal torrenting activities coming directly out of the Congressional halls, but here is a brand new issue. One of the major contributors to the drafting of these bills has been busted doing exactly what the bill proposes to prevent. He apparently used artwork without the permission of the author, or even crediting him for the work, on his website. We have sent Rep. Lamar Smith an email inquiring into this infringement, and have yet to receive a response, but the photographer, DJ Schulte isn’t very happy about being robbed of his rights…and may use Mr. Lamar’s own law to hit him in between the eyes after the law passes…if it passes.

He Who Has The Most, Huh

With the vote looming ever nearer the MPA and RIAA lobbyists keep upping the ante. Money has been pouring into the coffers of the lobbyists coffers to increase the pressure on our lawmakers. But, in spite of this the public still has a chance of winning this battle. In spite of the dollars, the politicians in Congress know that in order to gain the votes they need for reelection, a law this sweeping, (and damaging,) cannot be passed against the will of the American public. It’s time to motivate, and let these money-mongers know that their reelection could be endangered by the passage of this law.

What To Do

To help us block this potentially destructive law only takes a few moments of your time. But, you need to be in the U.S. and a citizen. If you love the internet the way that we do here at Usenetreviews, go to the website AmericanCensorship.org and send your legislators a letter saying simply “Stop these insane bills, SOPA and PIPA!” They have the forms there, and will insure that the letters are delivered to the appropriate lawmakers for your area. It’s that simple, but we need a LOT of people to do this…we are fighting against the greed of politicians. Once you have done that, let all your friends know about it, and let us know with a Tweet at @usenetrevirwz.

That doesn’t seem to be the case with our lawmaking assembly at all though. It’s been reported that there has been a lot of illegal torrent downloading going on via IP’s directly associated with the U.S. House of Representatives.

How Was It Discovered

One online journal reports that a lot of illegal downloading activities has been associated to the Department of Homeland Security and the Palace of the French President. Even many IP’s associated with the entertainment industry, Sony, Universal, Fox, and even the RIAA have been busted via the website YouHaveDownloaded, which maintains a huge database of only a small portion of the downloading information.

It’s a little complicated to search through the database due to it’s sheer size, but there’s a lot of potentially incriminating evidence there.

Who Is Downloading What

In a search, there were more than 800 IP addresses directly associated with the House. In these 800 a LOT of illegal downloads could be found. Things like “Crucial Conversations- Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High,” ($19.00 on Amazon,) and “ Sons Of Anarchy,” the DVD (Amazon price $29.00.) showed up on the list. There was software, Windows 7 was a popular download, as was quite a bit of porn…yes, porn. We aren’t going to handout the IP’s because of privacy issues, you understand we hope, but if you are interested you can go to the website and do a few searches…you may be surprised at what you will find.

Politically Speaking – They Need To Get Smart

Or just quit all together…that’s what they are attempting to impose upon the rest of the world. With the way that torrents operate, and the size of the community, you would think that the IP holders would want connections a little more private.  Had they been using a VPN provider their IP activities could have never been determined.  But the fact remains, they got caught…now the skeleton is out.

We’re predicting they are not going to get any smarter but somehow  fines sent to congressional members might reach unintended victims.

i It looks like a few of the U.S. Representatives need to get smarter.

All The Important Details

Since we haven’t had a lot of time playing around with the app, we only have the basic details, so updates may be forthcoming, and maybe even a full review. For now though, here are the details:

• Secured using SSL, great, we love our anonymity.
• Server, connections, (up to 4,) and log-ins are configurable.
• Deletes NZB’s when work is done.
• Downloading to separate files is supported.
• Testing of server and connections supported.
• Downloads in the background, even while sleeping.

Problems, Though Small, We Noted

Even though the app isn’t in the beta testing, the developer has stated that he will be working to add a couple of functions, (unpacking and PAR2,) and he is paying attention to the comments and suggestions that are coming in. Here are a couple of things that the commenters, (and us,) have noted:

• The native Android browser crashes during NZB downloading. Firefox and Opera, (not the mini,) worked great though.
• Download speeds could be improved a little. We did not that dual core processor units worked great though.
• Interface is a little rough and could look better, buit this isn’t extremely important.
• 1 download at a time, that sucks, but can be worked around, and the developer has plans on improving this too.

From The Developer

On the application page the developer said that he has a full-time job that demands his attention, but he is continuing to work on the application and that updates to provide functions and fix issues are forthcoming.

If you would like to get more information or educate yourself about Usenet and the newsgroup freedoms, then you can find tutorials, reviews of providers, and a mountain of other information at our site, Usenetreviews.