Just wondering what a rough split is of people using either Usenet, torrents, or both?

I’ve only just discovered Usenet and while it is paid, it is very cheap and much more convenient than torrents.

Using torrents as well with the *arr suite set up for my various Linux ISOs.

  • viking
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    10
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    6 months ago

    I’m mostly downloading fairly recently released stuff, so there’s no shortage of torrents on public trackers.

    I also don’t want any payment details associated with anything not explicitly legal, so that’d be a further deterrent from Usenet. Sure, I could use crypto, but even that links me to a wallet that might someday be traced back to me, so I’ll pass.

    • overload@sopuli.xyzOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      6 months ago

      I have wondered this as well. Seems like it is pretty linked.

      Tbf, Usenet and indexers are strictly speaking, legal.

      • viking
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        6 months ago

        Right, but whatever I’m doing on there really isn’t.

        As a matter of fact my current jurisdiction doesn’t even pursue copyright infringements, but I still don’t want to be linked to anything commonly seen as shady.

        • overload@sopuli.xyzOP
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          6 months ago

          Fair enough, I was under the impression that if you are using SSL, all an ISP or VPN provider could see is that you are connected to whichever backbone provider you were connected to. I.e. The content of what you are downloading is encrypted.

          You could be downloading stuff that is not illegal, and I don’t think that is necessarily knowable by anyone except yourself.

          I may be way off here, I’m not an IT person, but that was my understanding of SSL.

          • BitsOfBeard@programming.dev
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            6 months ago

            I’d say as a general rule any encryption can be cracked, but usually it is not worth the time and effort to do so.

        • Count042@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          6 months ago

          This is incorrect. What you’d are doing while purely downloading is legal.

          Bit torrent exposes you to liability not because you are downloading but because you’re sharing which courts have decided is distributing/performing, no matter how small the block you upload.

          This is not an issue with Usenet.

          • viking
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            6 months ago

            And you say that knowing my jurisdiction and its applicable laws?

        • GasMaskedLunatic@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          6 months ago

          It’s funny you put it that way, because torrents are based fundamentally on the idea of freely hosting the data so nobody has to pay to access it.

          • Chewy@discuss.tchncs.de
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            7
            ·
            edit-2
            6 months ago

            Torrents are based on the idea that everyone using them pays for it with their bandwidth and hardware cost. Except for those leechers who don’t share.

            I’m paying more for my seedbox than for my usenet subscription. If I used my own hardware I’d pay with stress on my hardware, e.g. the disks aging and failing earlier because of seeding. The power consumption is also not negligeble, altough the server is also used for other purposes.

            With private trackers this idea of an equal exchange is more obvious because of ratio requirements.

            Edit: I’d say it’s similar to open source in that no single individual has to pay for it, but someone does have to, for it to exist. Most often with their (valuable) time and knowledge. If no one helps out and does their part (through money or time+knowledge), a project won’t survive for long. Same is true for torrents.

      • viking
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        6 months ago

        You pay for traffic. There are some free versions out there, but they limit you to 10-25 GB or something. Might be an option for the 1% you can’t find on public trackers.

      • cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        6 months ago

        You can get free accounts from sites like Eternal September, but you only get access to text groups, which are mostly full of spam anymore. If you don’t download much, it’s best to just get a block account.