Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

No, if the server you use stops hosting the file, then you can't download it. Other people might still be able to, if their server still has the file. Most servers seem to do at least 3000 days retention, and others I've seen do 5000 days, so anything recent is probably gonna be there.

Its the same with torrents though, with the exception that hardly any torrent still has seeders after 5000 days. Usenet is more reliable in that regard, because you dont have to worry that older files won't have enough seeders for you to grab the whole thing.

It's a direct download, with no speed throttling, and no searching for peers. Depending on how busy the server is and if you configure your download client right, you can max out your internet connection. It's basically like downloading a finished torrent from a seedbox.

I would bet that the people who are saying that it's faster are probably not downloading from private trackers to a seedbox. I have heavily used private trackers and Usenet. Using both methods, the limitation is the speed of the hard drive on my seedbox. I could upgrade to a solid state drive but I prioritize storage space over speed. I can already grab pretty much every thing I want in a matter of seconds.

As for retention, torrenting beats out hands down. 5000 days is a big retention for usenet. I'm on several trackers with hundreds of torrents that have active seeders that were uploaded over 10 years ago... If you're using public trackers, then Usenet wins.

In my opinion the benefit to Usenet is not having to seed. I have a killer ratio on every private tracker I use. But sometimes I want to download something and I want to delete it right after. The real GOAT is to use them simultaneously. Pay for a couple of cheap Usenet providers (on different backbones) and get an affordable seedbox and put both torrent trackers and Usenet providers in Sonarr and Radar and you're gonna have a good time.

If you don't want to pay for a seedbox, Usenet is better since torrenting is slower through a VPN. You don't need a VPN on Usenet because, the servers you download from are the same that you gave your credit card info from.

Do you use a vpn with usenet? Is it even necessary as you aren’t hosting like with torrents?

I don't use a vpn because it would really slow down the speed and everything is downloading via https anyway so its encrypted. Your ISP will see you hitting usenet servers, but thats all. Milage may vary with how tolerate your ISP is towards this.

Have you found it easier to find less popular titles/things that there just doesn’t seem to be seeded torrents for?

Absolutely. The insane thing about usenet is retention. If it was uploaded 10 years ago to usenet, its still there. Available at max speed. No more dead torrents. I was in the same boat with users requesting stuff I couldn't find, with usenet its way way better.

Maybe. But the 5000 day retention most servers have is since upload. It doesn't relate to how old the series or movie in question is. If you search for a title, you're almost certainly going to find a few dozen or so versions of that title in various definitions and age. For example, just for kicks, I searched for episodes of the Andy Griffith show, and the oldest files I found were 3700 days old. The series is a bit older than that, of course.

You can get plenty of older shows on Usenet it's not like you won't find something like Star Trek from the 60's. Hell I recently started downloading V from 1984 so...

Can't be, I am actually you. Don't forget to do that thing later.