Usenet

In 1979, two Duke University graduate students created Usenet as public bulletin board system (BBS) for posting messages. Since then, Usenet has evolved, and now is an excellent forum for posting and downloading movies, music, and applications.

Usenet Newsgroup Service Providers

To access any of the material made available for download, you first need to obtain a newsgroup subscription.

Although many ISPs offer free newsgroup access, they often restrict access to hierarchies such as alt.binaries, under which the Usenet community posts the most music. To ensure the most unrestricted access, consider subscribing to a service.

Monthly charges range from $3 to $30, and, in general, you get what you pay for. Some providers, for example, limit the amount of data you can transfer, while others offer TLS (transport layer security) encryption. You should also consider the data retention period--the number of days articles (music, movies, etc.) are kept on a news server before being removed.

My provider, one of the most popular, is Giganews. It boasts an impressive 365 day binary retention policy, and its members upload more than 5TB of new content on a daily basis.

Others providers to consider include:

• Newshosting
• Binverse
• NewsgroupDirect
• PowerUsenet
• UseNetServer
• NewsDemon

Newsreaders

You probably suspected that you also need a program to actually download the music from the newsgroups. Such a program is called a newsreader, and it allows you to read Usenet newsgroup articles. For downloading music, you need a binary grabber type newsreader. A binary grabber, just as it sounds, is useful for downloading posts that contain binary content such as music.

Xnews and Alt.binz are free newsreaders that I use, but you have quite a few choices. Some readers are free, and some are available to purchase. The newsreaders that you purchase usually offer advanced features, so you have to decide if those options are worth the cost to you.

Some options to consider:

• Grabit (free)
• Pan (free)
• Newsbin Pro ($35.00)
• Newsleecher ($19.99)

Usenet Indexing Sites

To search for the music you want to download, the best way is through Usenet indexing sites. On these sites you can browse by keyword for a particular artist or album.

Most of these sites are free to access, but some are private and require an invitation:

• NZBMatrix (free, registration)
• MerlinsPortal.net (free, registration)
• NZBs’R’US (free, registration)
• Nzbrus (free, registration)
• Prettyboo (free, registration)
• YabSearch (free, no registration)
• Newzbin.com (paysite)
• Newzleech (free, no registration)
• Binsearch.info (free, no registration)
• Ngindex (paysite)
• Nzb.to (free, registration)
• NZBIndex (free, no registration)

Walk-through

Please note, this is just an example. No music was actually downloaded in the course of making this demonstration, so don't accuse me of anything!

1) Choose a Usenet indexing site and enter the name of an artist. (I used NZBIndex to find some Beatles albums.)

2) Download the .nzb file of the music album. (The .nzb file is what lets you retrieve the corresponding data from the newsgroup server.)

3) Use your newsreader application to open the .nzb file.

4) When your download finishes, unrar the file and enjoy your music.