this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2023
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Usenet and Debrid (lemmy.antemeridiem.xyz)
submitted 1 year ago by areyouevenreal@lemmy.antemeridiem.xyz to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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I have been doing torrents + VPN for years now and thinking about switching.

Is usenet and debrid safe to use without a VPN in the UK? What about other piracy streaming sites?

From what I understand it's cheaper to use a VPN than have debrid + usenet + private indexers but I am not sure.

I have heard some questionable justifications as to why it's safer such as it being encrypted (torrents can also be encrypted). Are the index sites also safe? I have heard it both ways about this. Including people saying index sites are not encrypted which they normally are.

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[–] jws_shadotak@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I'm in the US but this should still apply to the UK

Is usenet and debrid safe to use without a VPN in the UK?

Yes, as long as your provider offers SSL encryption. If you're using SSL encryption, the ISP can see what servers you're connected to but not what data is being transferred and that should be enough protection. If there isn't an option for SSL, you might want to use a VPN.

From what I understand it's cheaper to use a VPN than have debrid + usenet + private indexers but I am not sure.

It is cheaper, but availability and speed are what you're paying for if you sign up for a usenet provider.

I've been using both usenet and torrents for the past few years and never gotten a complaint. Usenet is my main source of everything. Only my torrent client itself is behind a VPN. All the arrs are unsecured and SABnzbd uses the SSL port for my usenet provider.

[–] areyouevenreal@lemmy.antemeridiem.xyz 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I get what encryption does. I also understand why it doesn't make torrents safe. That's why I got irritated when people were trying to claim encryption is why usenet is safer, cause torrents have encryption too. Even if Usenet is safe the reasoning people used is bad.

I think I am the most worried about indexer sites as these are banned or blocked in my country. Weirdly enough the Usenet ones aren't blocked and I am wondering why. I believe they have some kind of loop hole.

[–] Zedstrian@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The monetary barrier to usenet is probably why torrent trackers would be more popular, and thus more likely to be blocked by national regulators. As to why you're far more likely to get an ISP letter for torrenting than for using usenet, while the bittorrent protocol means than if you download a release you're also seeding it to others, paying usenet providers for access to their cached releases means that you're only downloading releases from them, and not uploading anything.

Comparing the cost of a VPN to Real-Debrid + a Usenet Indexer + A Usenet Provider depends on which services you choose, but in the case of ProtonVPN , NZBGeek, and Frugal Usenet it comes to $72 vs $84 a year, with the latter being more if you want to add a backup usenet block plan from a different node (block plans have a one-time upfront cost and last until you use up the plan's download capacity). If you forgo the additional block plan and NZBGeek, instead using a combination of the free tiers from indexers including Tabula Rasa, NZB Finder, Miatrix, and DrunkenSlug (most allowing for 5 free downloads a day), Real-Debrid + Frugal Usenet is the same as ProtonVPN at $72 a year.

[–] histic@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

it's not that they sniff traffic for torrents because that's as you said encrypted it's that bad actors can join public trackers and gather all the ips and send them off to your isp if your on private trackers that you trust you don't need a VPN

[–] areyouevenreal@lemmy.antemeridiem.xyz 1 points 1 year ago

This is also why peer block was invented. To stop people connecting to honey pots.

[–] areyouevenreal@lemmy.antemeridiem.xyz -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

People keep saying Usenet has better speed but I am not buying that. I regularly match the speed of my internet connection.

As for avaliability I am not sure. I am aware that there is limited retention time with usenet and that their are multiple "backbones". How does this effect the avaliability of downloads?

[–] jws_shadotak@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If your internet isn't great then it won't be much better for you vs torrents.

I get 1 gbps and my usenet host can fully saturate my download speeds.

My usenet host retention is currently over 5000 days. Most downloads that fail are because of DMCA takedowns. In those cases, 99% of the time, Sonarr or Radarr will find another one still under the same provider. It's only when all of those fail that it'll turn to torrents.

I can count on one hand the number of times I've had to use torrents in the past three years.

[–] areyouevenreal@lemmy.antemeridiem.xyz 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've seen torrents easily saturate 350 Mbps connections. Speed is actually one of the advantages of bittorrent protocol and has inspired things such as Windows peer to peer update feature.

I've actually been having problems with downloads from an indexer (nzbplanet) that don't download. I wonder if I have something configured wrong. I am not sure how to tell an indexer site what provider and backbone I am on.

[–] Zedstrian@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A usenet download can either fail due to being taken down after a DMCA or similar request, not being in one of the newsgroups cached by one's usenet provider, or because one's usenet provider has fewer days of retention than the age of the usenet release. In terms of telling a binary newsreader program (i.e. downloader) such as SABnzbd or NZBGet what your provider is, there's a page in the settings of those and similar applications to enter the domain name, port, username, and password associated with any usenet provider subscriptions and/or block plans you have.

[–] areyouevenreal@lemmy.antemeridiem.xyz 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I maybe wasn't clear. I have SABnzbd setup with the provider correctly (got it to download one file I found successfully). What I mean is can I set the indexer websites to only show stuff that's avaliable from my backbone as I only have one usenet provider on the Omicron backbone.

[–] Zedstrian@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 year ago

Unfortunately as most usenet indexers aren't usenet providers or vise versa, as far as I know there isn't a way for indexers to know which backbones have cached a given release or not. If any are able to deliver that it would be Easynews, which is both an indexer and provider, but even then that would just be for releases indexed by Easynews itself.

[–] ensignrick@startrek.website 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Fwiw I use a VPN on debrid because I don't trust it otherwise.

[–] Apollo2323@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Which VPN you use? They dont allow some VPNs.

[–] ensignrick@startrek.website 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Mullvad currently but NordVPN also worked. Not sure what debrid service your using but rd has a page that lists compatible VPN services

[–] Apollo2323@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 year ago

I just look at that website you mentioned but what do they mean by cooperative? I don't think you will get in trouble by using Real Debrid is just a server and they are hosting the media you are just downloading it from them

[–] Petter1@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I use the usenet because leeching is legal in my country. I think, we wouldn’t be able to reach the speed we have with using a VPN to be honest. So, if it is possible to use the usenet without VPN in UK, I think you may have faster download speed, but I’m not quite sure if VPN is really the bottleneck, usually.

[–] areyouevenreal@lemmy.antemeridiem.xyz 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Speed is not the concern with using a VPN. Having to pay for both is the concern.

[–] Petter1@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I guess with the new privacy killing law in UK, you always want to have a VPN ready, just in case.. Talking about this https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2022/01/uk-online-safety-bill-set-to-weaken-encryption-and-put-uk-internet-users-at-risk/

[–] areyouevenreal@lemmy.antemeridiem.xyz 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah they have tried that before and never got it passed or implemented afaik. Honestly the people of my country need to burn half the government down and start again. It's just sad. Still doing better than the US somehow.

[–] kokesh@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Is there a way to download from Usenet for free?

[–] Chewy7324@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 1 year ago

No, since bandwidth isn't free. It's necessary to pay for usenet like it's necessary to pay an ISP and a VPN provider. Their services cost them money.

[–] SmokeFree@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

usenet farm gives 10gb per email. Downloading new contents or new nzbs, no issues. Old contents, not so much.