Best Usenet-provider

by **Anonymous** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 10:01 am

Tried a handful of Usenet providors and I've been with (along with a couple of friends) http://www.Randori.com for a couple of weeks. The speed for my 512kbps connection is easy maxed out on 1 or 2 feeds and I'm pretty happy with their retention and completeness.

$17.99 per month for unlimited d/ls (I pull about 100+ gig a month) I thought was reasonable too.

So far I'm very happy indeed - their servers haven't been down yet either, ealry days but I'm sticking here for a while.

by **HouseCrowd** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 3:54 am

Hmmm, hadn't heard of that one tef - sounds good, might give it a try - thanks ....

So that's about a tenner per month in 'real money' yeah?

by **Anonymous** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 4:05 am

Yeh currently hovering around Â£9.80 in proper money lol.

I gotta admit I stumbled across by pure luck, I'd been using Ultrafeed.com but they suddenly stopped taking my near to useless Visa Electron card for some reason, so I just had a nosey around and found Randori.com - never imagined they'd take my card let alone be this good but they did and I've been sat here with a big grin on my face ever since

Â£10 is at the top end of what I realistically wanted to spend but for the service I'm getting I don't think I'll be changing.

I'm steadily converting my entire 60 person hub to them so hopefully they'll stay this good - or I can imagine I'll be hunted down by an angry mob

by **HouseCrowd** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 5:00 am

lol, thanks

Presumably they carry most/all the binaries too?

by **Anonymous** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 5:16 am

Not found a binary they don't have yet HC, I've currently got 20 or so subscribed to although I mainly stay in the Xbox and Dvd groups.

You can search for specific groups here:-

http://www.randori.com/randori/gsearch.html

A search I just did on alt.binaries resulted in 2597 matches

So I think they seem pretty complete

Propagation is good with them getting the new stuff within around 24hrs. Retention various, as always lol, but busy stuff like dvdr and cd.image.xbox stay around 5 days. Completion also seems very good.

by **markjd** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 10:33 am

Tef - How many feeds do you get for your money?

by **Anonymous** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 10:53 am

Maximum is 4x feeds. I use one and it maxes my 512 99% of the time. I have friends that are on 1 and 2 meg lines and they report top speeds too

Stats for the last month:-

Code: Select all: Aggregate Total= 129560.65 MB in 32 days

Code: Select all: Aggregate Rate = 4048.7703125 MB/Day

by **Anonymous** » Wed Apr 07, 2004 2:27 pm

Seems like randori have done a U-Turn. After recomending several friends for their unlimited account Randori have now capped their 'unlimted' gold members at 150g a month and are calling anyone above that commercial users.

Their Unlimted account is now withdrawn - guess I should have kept my mouth shut lol.

email sent to a friend who strayed above 150g

Dear Customer,

Our Acceptable Use Policy states that our unlimited
accounts are for personal use only, not for archiving large
amounts of data for possible commercial purposes. We have not
enforced that clause until now. We have determined that we
have a growing number of users that are downloading excessive amounts.
These accounts cost us far more than we can charge and we cannot afford
to continue in this manner.

We are implementing a couple of changes immediately.

1. Currently download amounts above 150GB in 30 days will be
considered excessive downloading and the user's account will be
disabled until their anniversary date rolls around. Customers are
free to restart their account to gain access immediately.

2. Exceeding 150GB in successive months will be considered abuse and
grounds for account termination.

3. We will no longer be selling unlimited accounts but in the next
day or so we will begin offering block accounts for users to purchase
if they wish to download more than their account allows in a 30 day
period.

We hope you understand our need to take quick action.

-Randori News Support Team

If I wasn't going 1mb next week I'd have been ok but now I guess I'm looking elsewhere for unlimited

by **SlyckTom** » Wed Apr 07, 2004 2:44 pm

Ok....I have decided to try UseNetServer.com. I also have used easynews. Dont get me wrong its a great service, but I need an unlimited service...So, I am going to try UseNetServer and see what happens...but so far so good...

by **Anonymous** » Wed Apr 07, 2004 2:52 pm

Yeh I'd use usenetserver but I only have UK debit cards (which randori took) - so I search once again lol.

by **SlyckTom** » Wed Apr 07, 2004 2:54 pm

tef89: Randori feeds off of Usenetserver.com...if u were happy with Randori's completion, perhaps give them a try...

by **Anonymous** » Wed Apr 07, 2004 2:58 pm

I would if I could but I only have UK debit cards (Solo and Visa Electron) neither of which they accept

by **NeMiNaToR** » Sun Apr 11, 2004 4:11 pm

tef89 wrote:I would if I could but I only have UK debit cards (Solo and Visa Electron) neither of which they accept

Hey tef hows it hanging m8, you get that free month?

Well ive probably gone over my 150GB for randori, if i get that email ill reply with a cancellation, fudge em!

Ill goto Usenetserver.com they have better retention anyway. BTW if you're over 18, you bank with give you a cash point card with a VISA/Switch Debit function, i use my Barclays Connect (Visa) to pay randori, maybe you can pop into your branch to see if they will play ball?

Something that bothers me is all of us doing over 100GB a month, is what do you say when your ISP contacts your for an explination? Surely whatever you say they can tell exactly what you have DL anyway, right down to the file names?

I dunno.

Edit: woot!
Aggregate Total= 139034.6949 MB in 23 days
Aggregate Rate = 6044.98673478261 MB/Day

by **Anonymous** » Sun Apr 11, 2004 4:59 pm

Hi, the free month only kicks in after someone's been there for three months and as the've just capped it, as you know, I'm not confident anyone I'd recomended will be there that long lol

The card situation is a little more complicated than just being over 18 I'm afraid - it's not an automatic thing that they offer the visa debit or switch facility - it's credit checked

That's why I'm left with Solo and Electron

In theory your isp can monitor any stream to see what you're d/l - I guess at this point all the isp is interested in is the amounts - my isp doesn't seem to bat an eyelid at the 140g or so I manage in a month.

by **HouseCrowd** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 2:18 am

tef89 wrote:The card situation is a little more complicated than just being over 18 I'm afraid - it's not an automatic thing that they offer the visa debit or switch facility - it's credit checked That's why I'm left with Solo and Electron

Get a Capital 1 card tef - they'll give anyone one!

(hell, they gave me one even after a failed business and lots of bad credit!). Initially they'll only give you a small limit, and fairly high interest, but if you use it wisely, paying it off straight away, it won't cost you much.

by **Anonymous** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 2:42 am

Thanks HC I'll give it a try - I'd only be using it for online purposes so a small limit would do me fine

by **markjd** » Thu Apr 15, 2004 2:54 pm

In theory your isp can monitor any stream to see what you're d/l - I guess at this point all the isp is interested in is the amounts - my isp doesn't seem to bat an eyelid at the 140g or so I manage in a month.

140gig a month - nice work Tef. I thought I downloaded a lot at 80gig a month!

by **Anonymous** » Thu Apr 15, 2004 2:58 pm

lol now I got my 1mbit I'm gonna be looking at 300gig a month hopefully

by **NeMiNaToR** » Thu Apr 15, 2004 3:12 pm

Im using usenetserver now, a few $$ cheaper than randori, you can have 6 streams unlike randori's 4, and best of all upto FIFTEEN days retention, makes randori look poop.

OH! and unlimited DLs.

tef dont do 300GB a month, Blueyonder will look into that m8. You got a Captial One now then?

I had one but ditched it. My payment was one day late due to a bank hoilday, so they charged me Â£30 for this, pushing me over my limit, so they charged me a further Â£30! I was not amused so told them to stick their card up their ass.

by **Anonymous** » Thu Apr 15, 2004 3:17 pm

I'm not with Blueyonder m8

and no Capital One card - refused as usual lol.

Probably looking at Uns myself after my randori account runs out next month.

by **HouseCrowd** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 2:13 am

tef89 wrote:and no Capital One card - refused as usual lol.

Yeah!?

Sorry, they must've changed their policies or something. They were known for giving cards to just about anyone, albeit with the penalty of a lower credit limit and slightly higher interest rate. (perhaps you didn't lie enough about your income

)

by **Anonymous** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 3:08 am

lol

Probably a problem with the electoral register - I moved a few times over the last few years and ain't always been too fussed whether I appear on it or not.

I appreciate the suggestion tho HC - well worth thr try.

EDIT:- 30.04.04

Woohoo - Capital One shares will soon be on the way down as they've offered me a card : :lol:

cheers HC

by **cap sane** » Wed Apr 28, 2004 6:39 am

muldoon wrote:The one thing I've noticed when speaking about Easynews is how great their completion rate is, and how superior their retention time is compared to everyone else. However, the one thing I never notice anyone speak about is their web interface.

The web interface is great for reading groups without pulling headers but if you use the http download you miss out on the bonus (25% I think) they give for using the nntp download.

muldoon wrote:Not only does it make surfing Usenet easier for the newbies, it also allows them to create what I think is the best idea since buttered toast. The Global Search allows people to search for files within all the newsgroups without having to view every single file. Even if you don't use the web interface this still is a handy tool to search for what you want.

Great tool. For some reason it has lately been not showing all the posts though. Not sure why. I mentioned it to them this morning while taking the survey (which you can take once a week for an extra half gig free download credit) maybe it is something they will get fixed right away, they usually do. I've been using the global search to check my own posts for completeness but just lately all the posts I make don't always show up in the global search, even though they are certainly on the server. Odd.

The survey is here (link below), btw, and is a really simple and quick thing...great way to grab an extra free 2 gigs a month if you take it weekly. Between using the nntp download and taking the survey you can actually get a lot more than the advertised 6 gigs a month for your money.

http://members.easynews.com/survey/

by **wayland** » Wed Apr 28, 2004 11:24 am

i find global search can miss files, try doing a search in the group you posted to

by **markjd** » Sat May 08, 2004 1:46 pm

I have recently switched to easynews, its expensive but as the old saying goes "you get what you pay for". The retention is the best I have ever come across, the web interface works well and saves on header downloads. Highly recommened!

Best Usenet-provider

Randori.com

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