Look NZBMatrix was bad for the community. No way around that. A lot of the DMCA takedown problems Usenet was having was specifically due to NZBMatrix. They knew it, and so did just about everyone else. But NZBMatrix isn’t the root problem. It’s the actual posts.
Newznab is the best way forward. It’s fairly easy to run, and you can get it set up in a single afternoon. Instead of having a few big NZB indexers, we’re starting to see smaller community projects. A single small Newznab site with only a few hundred users is much less of a target than a giant such as NZBMatrix.
Only, we could all have the most reliable indexers, and we could still be facing DMCA problems. I don’t think we’re quite at the point of being able to have community run Usenet servers. I wish we were, but even a low retention server would still be insanely expensive.
The big problem is the Usenet Providers themselves. US providers have to takedown posts, or they’ll become liable. No way around it. Would be better if they could drag their feet a bit. Or make the requester to jump through more hoops than simply emailing in the NZB.
At least more people are already moving towards the NL providers, but they aren’t 100% immune either. But we still have the posts themselves being the problem. Obfuscation isn’t a real answer, since that is bad for the community in general. It could be made to work, but more creative people than me will have to figure it out.
I started installing Newznab last night to have a local indexer but ran into a problem, nothing huge but i’ll be adding it to a fresh linux install in the next week. I also believe this is the best option for everyone (yes I know not everyone has this option)
running it locally has its advantages, but does setting something like this completely torch your personal internet connection?
I am running 50/25 internet, have the spare PC but am a bit leery about setting this up, if for anything legality reasons (although I suppose no one would come after my own personal server. How easy is it to setup your own indexes?
Can this be plugged into things like couchpotato or sickbeard?
a great discussion here from 2010 but still true http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=82119
I would use my local for only a small 2-3 week retention since I usually don’t go searching back for older stuff, I’d also turn off the music/movie sections that have all the cover images and just go with the indexing the main groups that i’m interested in.
If you have some good Linux knowledge, it’s not that bad. But it will be constantly downloading headers, so you’ll have constant traffic, which can be a problem. Esp. if you want to also download stuff.
Not sure if you have data caps either.
Is there a way to do this on a windows pc, or is it linux only?
If so where is a write up?
Actually this can (technically) be setup on a windows computer by using something like VMWare that allows you to setup a virtual machine on your system. In this case just setup a virtual linux machine.
The VMWare player is free.
Just google VMWare.
I’m no dummy.. but this does not look easy way forward.
nzb.su is now down. I don’t if this is a permanent situation or just a temporary problem, though.
You gotta use: http://nzb.su/index.php
That sends me to http://usenet.elit3ge.net/register, which doesn’t respond. Someone in the Sickbeard forums said they’re were actually using the nzb.su forums then the site suddenly wasn’t working anymore, so there’s at least one report of something other than their front page being down.
Actually, when I type in the nzb.su/index.php manually, the page loads fine. Is it redirecting anyone with a referrer somewhere else, maybe?
Perhaps, glad it works.
definitely noticed more new Newznab index sites starting up, but then becoming “invitation only” or “registrations closed” soon afterwards.
I think that’s the way it’s going to have to be, at least for a little while. Anyone that has open registration is going to 1) be flooded with new users and 2) open themselves up to DMCA take downs.
Especially when most people aren’t going to be set up to take payments or even donations, no one is going to be able to run a large indexer this soon.
Does anyone know how to setup newsnab to make my own indexer?
This is probably the most comprehensive.
http://newznab.readthedocs.org/en/latest/
Thanks, will try, seems like the best solution, I have a lot of traffic and old pcs lying around…
these instructions aren’t all that clear though.
Installing it is easy under mamp or something but you need to run sql script via command and also configure your own mod rewrite (as far as i can tell) otherwise none of the friendly urls work – meaning none of your pages view properly.
Not that easy really
Anyone else struggling with nzb.su?
I cant get on, and i just got VIP this evening………..
lol
If you’re getting the 404 page at nzb.su, try nzb.su/index.php (as was suggested to me above.) That works for me, though it only worked when I manually put the address in the address bar, not when I clicked a link.
Hmmm… Your suggestion worx..! nzb.su worked!
Thats a relief!
I never like putting bank details into websites as it is, let alone ones that disappear 2 hours later! lol
What about decentralized indexing? I’ve read about Spotnet, which seems to have popularity outside of the US.
I need to look into that. Wish there were more English resources for it.
Anyone know what those weird named posts are in newsgroups like alt.b.hdtv.x264 that look something like this: ca229ad71b589891c1312ce5e7edee29. I’m thinking they’re trying to hide the names, but how do we find out what those actually are?
That looks like an API key to me…..
Gingadaddy nzb is dead now………. anyone heard anything about that?
This sucks. I paid a lifetime membership to nzbmatrix. Thought it would last my lifetime not their short-ass one.
Thats a risk we all took. Its a small investment in something that doesn’t have stability.
It pays to be an account hoarder. I try to get an account at every indexer I hear about. Just for situations like this.
i just tried gingadaddy again and it apears to be up again……….
the message i got was that it had been shut for legal reasons…, this was only a few hours ago……
now normal?
very odd?
Site is currently up, registered an account but then when I try to log in it says
SEIZED!! Been forced to close.
Nothing can be done about this!
Its up. I was just on there. I signed up for VIP. I am also account hoarder. Just trying to get into any site. just for backup. just keep trying and you will get lucky. One site was forced to close due to DMCA requests and costs due to so many signing up. Things will get better .I hope soon.. cheers.. and good luck everyone!
Hi, I have setup the indexer using Newznab and back fetched 200 days of 2 groups. I think it worked because it took about 3 hours to complete. Problem is that after, in the newznab localhost page, when I click the ‘browse items’ menu, nothing is showing up, like nothing indexed or fetched. If someone can help with some next steps, I would really appreciate that… thanks in advance
Are you running the classic version? If so you should know that the regex’s that come with that (2 I think) aren’t worth much and probably won’t match for any releases.
If so you can try running https://github.com/kop1/newznab/blob/master/db/latestregex.sql into your db, and rerunning update_releases.
They’re alittle stale at this stage, but should match for a bunch of stuff (except possibly categorised wrong), and give you an idea of what to expect if you hand over the 15$.
-M.
if i understand correctly, Newznab is an app for indexing usenet my self at home, right?
well if so, that means that the files will still need to be named correctly like Ubuntu.iso instead of a nickname like bojhg34.iso and not zipped with password, right?
so how is that a way forward? DMCA can make own indexing also and still request to take it down, right?
i guess the only way is have secret portals where posts directed to bojhg4.iso files with pass , for which none of have invite to :/
please tell me im wrong
Just an FYI…
I set up and I am currently running a private Newznab site and bandwidth can be a killer. Without doing any backfills and running about 20 groups to index TV/Movies/Audiobooks it churns through 5-6 GB bandwidth per day without compression. Currently, Astraweb is the only provider that seems to work with compressed headers, and it does reduce the traffic needed, but at the cost of a lot of missed headers due to their automated DMCA takedown process. Using compression, I’m still using 1.5 to 2 GB of traffic a day and about 1 GB per day through Astraweb for shallow RAR-password inspection.
If you have unlimited Internet without data caps, it might be okay, but with more providers in the USA implementing caps I’m not sure how realistic running a private indexer will be. There’s also a lot of garbage posts and obfuscated posts that the regex’s (even with the plus version) just can’t filter/sort properly.