Feeling all alone in this crazy post-NZBMatrix world? Wanting to reconnect with your old friends? Don’t worry, you’re not alone! A refugee forum has been set up on Matrix.nux.sx. It’s still kind of small, hopefully more people will start to wander in.

They also have IRC up at #NZBMatrix.chat on p2p-network.net

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 know quite a few people will be rejoicing, but there will also be the refugees. For a while, many people viewed NZBMatrix as poisonous to the NZB community. Merely because copyright trolls liked to use it too for takedowns.

If you’re here, and a refugee, you already know what indexers you need to get on. So it’s just a matter of joining IRC or some forums and trying to network. But until you can find an invite or NZB.su or DogNZB open up registrations.

But there is one alternatives. Simply, welcome to the world of searching headers.

At this point two sites should be your friend. Binsearch.info and Orlydb.

Find the release name on Orlydb and then search that exact string on Binsearch. Make sure that the file sizes match up and you should be good to go.

In addition, NZBClub and NZBIndex should also be used in conjunction with Orlydb.

Old, I know.

Hope all of you guys got an account before they closed registrations.

I’ve been bouncing around nzb.su, nzbs.org, and dognzb.cr got the last few months. Can’t quite make up my mind which one I like the most. Loyalty brings me back to nzbs.org, but sometimes I feel like nzb.su is slightly better. But then I’ll eventually wander over to dognzb.cr.

No one perfectly replicates each other’s indexes. NZBs.org seems to mostly pick up only group releases from IRC channels. Nzb.su and Dognzb are both better at picking up uploads uploaded by people who aren’t part of an IRC group. So the results tend to be a little better.

Dognzb.cr has a one time fee, but I feel like they’ll probably have to start some kind of annual fee. Or close, but who wants that? I’d gladly pay a little bit to keep dognzb open and have an account.

If you’re new to Usenet, I’d head right over to NZB.su and get an account right now. Hell, even if you’re only thinking about it. You should go get an account. All of these sites tend to close up their registrations quick, and having that one account can mean the difference between a good indexer or being relegated to NZBMatrix or a forum.

Edit: DogNZB zeroed out everyone’s invites, so getting in will be extremely difficult.