There are generally two major ways to find content on usenet. Human indexers and auto-indexers.

In the past, NewzBin was the Big Daddy of human indexers and indexers in general. You had to pay for access, but it was always worth it for the sheer amount of content they had indexed. They had a large group of people who search Usenet and find content on their own. You could always find popular content, and some NewzBin editors would always find the more niche things. Then NewzBin lost a big court case and relaunched month or two later by a different group of owners. The newest group don’t seem to be as professional, and a lot of people are weary to buy services from them.

In NewzBin’s absence, NZBMatrix was ready to fill in the void. Anyone can upload an NZB file on NZBMatrix. You still have to pay £7.00 GBP for VIP access. That allows you to download as many NZB files as you want, API access, and longer retention are the main highlights.

The new kids on the block are the auto-indexers. They monitor major newsgroups for content and auto-index the posts that match their regex filters. This method picks up the vast majority of content that anyone would want to get. NZBs.ORG is the best of the bunch, but good luck trying to get an account. Hope you know someone that has an extra. It’s a good site that breaks content down into several different categories and subcategories. NZB.su is the best alternative, and in my opinion, might be even a little better. Both are free and both have API keys.

A small but still good source are various small forums out there. They seem to be fading out since it’s an inefficient human indexer that isn’t as easy to search and browse.

 

Human Indexed

• Good at adding content from lesser known newsgroups
• Indexes all popular content
• Slower than Auto-Indexers

Auto-Indexers

• Good at adding new content quickly
• Good at adding popular content
• Not very good at adding content from lesser known newsgroups

Usenet Search Engines

• Monitors are wide selection of newsgroups
• Only about a 5 to 10 minute delay from the time content is posted
• Limited ability to browse groups