Sharing newsgroup sub

thepeganator · 17 Sep 2010 at 13:54

Tried looking for this on the their site, but not really found anything.

Have an Astraweb subscription, pay £7ish a month for the unlimited with 20 connections, ssl etc.

Obviously I don't need 20 connections, I only have each of my computers set to use 6 (laptop and desktop), maxes out on 2 or 3 tbh, but 6 seems to give best reliability.

A friend has enquired about using newsgroups, he's on virgin like me so has access to a limited amount but would like the older retention and better completion ratio.
Is there anything wrong with me either selling or just letting him use the remaining connections? There will always be a minimum of 8 available, more likely 14 as downloading on laptop and desktop would be pointless due to bandwidth constraints.

He has offered to pay, but not too fussed being the best mate and all, just wondering if it's against their rules to sell/share?

Seem to remember rapidshare sharing to be against their T&Cs, not sure for Astraweb!

PistolPete · 17 Sep 2010 at 14:08

From AUP: III. Accounts may be used for the subscribers personal use only. To ensure personal usage, accounts may only be logged in from a single location or IP address at any one time.

If you both used it at the same time then the later one gets their IP blocked for a period of time on that account. I had this when I was connected the the internet via Wifi and my 3G dongle was connected. It managed to connect the first connected via 3G and blocked my wifi for some time afterwards.

So, provided you don't use it at the same time it's technically possible, whether or not there would be problems in doing it is another thing.

**Please note I'm not advising you to share your subscription, just that it's technically possible, and can not be held responsible if you do decide to share it.

thepeganator · 17 Sep 2010 at 14:09

Ok, so we will not be able to use it at the same time anyway, will bear this in mind.

C64 · 18 Sep 2010 at 00:17

Vm newsgroups are fine in terms of completion i have found yes they only have 7 day retention but anything older is easily found more often than not elsewhere.

masterluke · 18 Sep 2010 at 14:51

http://www.news.astraweb.com/aup.html

"III. Accounts may be used for the subscribers personal use only. To ensure personal usage, accounts may only be logged in from a single location or IP address at any one time."

pumaz · 18 Sep 2010 at 22:35

It's £7 tell your mate to take out a sub and stop being tight!!!

iviv · 18 Sep 2010 at 23:35

C64 said:
Vm newsgroups are fine in terms of completion i have found yes they only have 7 day retention but anything older is easily found more often than not elsewhere.

Really? I've tried a couple of times to get my head around the VM newsgroups and it always ends up with me getting fed up and going back to downloading my linux ISOs from torrents.

Still, in the name of wanting to see what the fuss is all about, what newsreader would you recommend?
[/offtopic]

MikeHunt79 · 18 Sep 2010 at 23:47

Just use one of those free servers instead.

thepeganator · 19 Sep 2010 at 00:00

pumaz said:
It's £7 tell your mate to take out a sub and stop being tight!!!

Lol!
He doesn't need one, he gets his distro's from elsewhere, just thought it would be useful, tbh I was probably going to say buy me a pint and forget the money.

iviv said:
Really? I've tried a couple of times to get my head around the VM newsgroups and it always ends up with me getting fed up and going back to downloading my linux ISOs from torrents.

Still, in the name of wanting to see what the fuss is all about, what newsreader would you recommend?
[/offtopic]

I use Grabit, server for VM is "news.virginmedia.com" (no quotes obviously) and use port 119, 3 connections maxes out my 10mb just fine.

No password needed, just to be on a VM cable connection.

They can be pretty good if all you want is your just aired 720p linux episodes, comes out before they hit torrents most of the time, and fast right from the off.

iviv · 19 Sep 2010 at 00:19

thepeganator said:
I use Grabit, server for VM is "news.virginmedia.com" (no quotes obviously) and use port 119, 3 connections maxes out my 10mb just fine.

No password needed, just to be on a VM cable connection.

They can be pretty good if all you want is your just aired 720p linux episodes, comes out before they hit torrents most of the time, and fast right from the off.

Awesome, thanks. I'm in, and currently updating a group. Certainly takes a while, going at around 700kb/s and got another couple of minutes to go. Do I have to do this each time I want to search for more recent distros?

Pho · 19 Sep 2010 at 01:24

Find somewhere where you can download NZB files (they're essentially the 'torrent' of the usenet world) and you'll never need to download the headers (update a group) again.

iviv · 19 Sep 2010 at 02:07

Pho said:
Find somewhere where you can download NZB files (they're essentially the 'torrent' of the usenet world) and you'll never need to download the headers (update a group) again.

Really? How's that work, though? I mean, surely there would have to be seperate nzb files for each newsgroup? Kind of like private BT trackers, but Virgin wouldn't provide a search for thier own content, so I'd have to find a search engine that deals with VM's newsgroups?

Rainmaker · 19 Sep 2010 at 05:22

iviv said:
Really? How's that work, though? I mean, surely there would have to be seperate nzb files for each newsgroup? Kind of like private BT trackers, but Virgin wouldn't provide a search for thier own content, so I'd have to find a search engine that deals with VM's newsgroups?

It doesn't work like that. Usenet is like the internet, NZBs are just links to content (like Google search results). You don't need NZBs that are specific to VM's newsgroups any more than you need Google results tailored to Sky internet and AOL...

Guide here.

VM's newsgroups are the same as anyone else's newsgroups. VM are the news provider, so are Sky/AOL in the above analogy. The content provided is identical across providers (aside from any retention differences etc).

iviv · 19 Sep 2010 at 11:47

Rainmaker said:
It doesn't work like that. Usenet is like the internet, NZBs are just links to content (like Google search results). You don't need NZBs that are specific to VM's newsgroups any more than you need Google results tailored to Sky internet and AOL...

Guide here.

VM's newsgroups are the same as anyone else's newsgroups. VM are the news provider, so are Sky/AOL in the above analogy. The content provided is identical across providers (aside from any retention differences etc).

Huh, I never realised that, thanks. I assumed that since all the different providers had different retentions, that meant that they each had their own servers, so they would all be seperate. Thanks for all the clarifications

C64 · 19 Sep 2010 at 13:20

iviv said:
Really? I've tried a couple of times to get my head around the VM newsgroups and it always ends up with me getting fed up and going back to downloading my linux ISOs from torrents.

Still, in the name of wanting to see what the fuss is all about, what newsreader would you recommend?
[/offtopic]

altbinz and just enter news.virginmedia.com as server and of course change it to 20 connections and of course an nzb search site

Pho · 19 Sep 2010 at 15:47

iviv said:
Huh, I never realised that, thanks. I assumed that since all the different providers had different retentions, that meant that they each had their own servers, so they would all be seperate. Thanks for all the clarifications

Lots will have their own servers or will just resell through a dedicated provider like Giganews, so when you connect to say news.virginmedia.com it's actually redirected to Giganews in the background.

All the servers will be synced together, so despite the retention issue what's on one newsgroup provider should propagate to another - with the exception of certain providers deciding not to carry specific groups.

edit: infact, doing a tracert on news.virginmedia.com shows that address ends up at a company called Highwinds who are providing the service instead of VM.

Rainmaker · 19 Sep 2010 at 15:51

Pho said:
edit: infact, doing a tracert on news.virginmedia.com shows that address ends up at a company called Highwinds who are providing the service instead of VM.

Yep, it's Highwinds Group with a supposed 7 day retention. I say supposed, because you seem to get luck of the draw as to which reseller within the Group you connect to, and not all enforce the 7 day limit. Rumour has it that Thundernews are the 'broken' ones, offering hundreds of days instead of the normal 7. I still use Giga though.

thepeganator · 21 Sep 2010 at 02:07

I would advise http://www.nzbs.org/ as a starter nzb index, easy to search, create etc, and is free too.