is giganews worth having anymore?

[Zamtuk]

I used it a while back but stopped after a while. I went to their website to renew it and now they're on monthly plans. So, is it worth my time or are their any other better alternatives?

[Fairweather Pure]

I still have it. I figure if I use it once a month I'm getting my money's worth. It has been awhile though, and I'm also curious if a new/better alternative is available.

[Winnow]

I get a constant 26.25 mbps stream from my 25 mbps Cox service from giganews (read: absolute maxed bandwidth)

no issues with retention or completion.

If you can't afford giganews, I'm sure there are alternatives but if you have the money, they're still the ones to go with.

by new/better, do you mean cheaper? What are your complaints with giganews?

[Mak]

I've been using powerusenet.com and been happy. It's a sister company to giganews- cheaper with a little less retention. I think they're up to 400 days or so. Might be worth looking at.

[Zamtuk]

I get a constant 26.25 mbps stream from my 25 mbps Cox service from giganews (read: absolute maxed bandwidth)

no issues with retention or completion.

If you can't afford giganews, I'm sure there are alternatives but if you have the money, they're still the ones to go with.

by new/better, do you mean cheaper? What are your complaints with giganews?

No, its certainly not the price. It has just been a few years (like 3) since I last used it, and when I noticed the different price structure, I figured that it was either worth it, or that there was something better out there that I don't know about. I also wanted to know the alternatives so I can get a better deal/longer contract with giganews.

[Winnow]

No, its certainly not the price. It has just been a few years (like 3) since I last used it, and when I noticed the different price structure, I figured that it was either worth it, or that there was something better out there that I don't know about. I also wanted to know the alternatives so I can get a better deal/longer contract with giganews.

Ah ok, well I suppose it depends on your usage. The main alternatives are Rapidshare type services )of which there are a bunch), and Torrents.

Torrents

-much slower
-seeder dependant
-pretty useless for older stuff
-torrent sites dropping like flies for legal reasons

I use torrents only for that rare piece of software or specialized multimedia I can't find on the newsgroups. It has it's place but certainly not as a primary source.

Rapidshare (direct download) type services.

-Must subscribe if want any substantial amount of data
-there are so many direct download services now that it's likely you're files will be on another service, thus increasing your monthy subscription or forcing you to pay for a month to get one particular file.
- around a 2GB file limit even if subscribed on main services like Rapidshare, making it completely useless for any larger file needs.
-files constantly being removed per legal violations and by request of the owner with copyrights.

I use direct download for iphone apps (a few MB in size) and other small releases when only one file is needed, so you don't need to subscribe and aren't hit with the 30 minute waiting game. On the rare occasion, I've subscribed to rapidshare, or another services, when I find a rare, sizable, collection of files I want and only can find them on the direct download service, but again, never as a primary source.

Giganews with Newsleecher/Supersearch is so incredibly efficient and easy, I can't see an alternative that's better. Supersearch is what makes this work. You could use the $3/month supersearch service combined with a different usenet provider and this is when money comes into play. Giganews is the best, most retention, most reliable, service. To my knowledge, there isn't a better newsgroup service out there, only possibly a cheaper service that would satisfy your needs if you are completely a mainstream user and are just looking for the "release of the week".

Even if you don't feel you need the unlimited 24/month (or 29.month ssl secured) service, Giganews is still the way to go as you can easily add more GB by resubscribing right when you hit your GB limit, for another month starting at that date so you're covered no matter what....for example...you have monthly 12.99/35GB service that started on the 1st of the month....you use up your 35GB by the 20th, you simply pay your 12.99/35GB on the 20th, and giganews sets your new 12.99/35 monthly charge to the 20th of each month...pretty damn easy and all you're doing is moving your monthly 30 day window.

There's no reason to not go with Giganews/Newsleecher/Supersearch except for financial reasons or if you are a light user and don't mind taking your valuable time (you are slowly dying with every breath you take) to find files you wish to see.

Giganews isn't some secondary seller. They have their shit together.

From Giganews directly:

12 Reasons to Use Giganews Usenet Newsgroups

Giganews newsgroups provide the fastest, most reliable Usenet experience on the planet. Our news servers offer the highest quality newsgroup retention and completeness available. Keep reading to find out why.

1. Reliability
At Giganews we know that, to you, reliability actually means usability. This is why we've always offered you excellent completion, the world's longest binary and text retention, and congestion free systems — all supporting a service which practically never goes down!

2. Retention
With the world's longest newsgroup binary retention of 584 days and text retention of 2456 days, you'll get all the articles you're looking for without having to camp out in your favorite groups.

3. Speed
With multiple gigabit-plus backbones running at a fraction of capacity, Giganews gives you all the speed you'll need to enjoy your favorite newsgroups. Our extensive network of private connections to Internet Service Providers allows many of our members to connect with super low latency and minimum hops. Use our speed tester to see for yourself.

4. Completion & Propagation
As the world's largest Tier 1 Usenet provider, Giganews is the source for more Usenet articles than any other server on Earth. Combine this with our extensive network of Usenet peers and you start to see why Giganews is the only newsgroup server able to truly offer greater than 99% completion. This extensive network of Usenet peering relationships is also what allows us to push your posts out to Usenet servers around the world.

5. Uncensored Newsgroups
Giganews provides access to over 109,000 uncensored newsgroups. You'll be able to find all the information you're looking for without having to worry about missing articles in your favorite groups.

6. Experience & Expertise
Giganews' reliability and high service levels are byproducts of our years of experience developing and managing large scale commercial Usenet servers. With hundreds of Terabytes of storage, thousands of megabits per second, and millions of users around the world creating challenges on a daily basis, you have to have the history and know-how to keep things running smoothly. It's this experience and expertise which allows Giganews to sustain our high service levels when other providers are scrambling to correct problems from the "weekend rush”. Giganews gives you a service backed by the world's most advanced team of Usenet professionals working around the clock to make sure we're there when you need us.

7. Support
Giganews provides 24/7 e-mail support on all accounts. Our Usenet professionals will respond the same day; however, most tickets are answered within minutes. If you're having trouble with your Giganews account rest assured that someone is available to help you figure out the problem so that you may continue to enjoy Usenet.

8. Value
The value of Giganews' service is in our reliability, high completion rates, and our expansive retention times. Other providers come and go with unlimited accounts and good retention, but in the end it always comes out to more of the same: downtime, missing articles, and a congested Usenet system. Giganews virtually never has these problems. Our members don't complain about dropped connections, congestion, or missing articles. Giganews' members are able to utilize Usenet and go on with their lives. Of course you can always hack your way through bad service to save a few dollars, but ultimately the money you save is negated by the time you spend to save it. Giganews gives you a service which is always there, always high quality, and always exceeds your expectations.

9. Privacy
Giganews respects your privacy, which is why we will never share your information with outside parties or track your downloads unless required by law.

10. Security
Help protect yourself from identity theft, secure your username and password, and work around artificial bandwidth restrictions with Giganews' optional 256-bit SSL Encrypted Usenet™ package

11. Spam
Over the years Giganews has been an industry leader in stamping out spam on Usenet. In combination with our active monitoring of spam sources on Usenet, Giganews has a cutting edge spam filtration system designed to keep unwanted articles out of your favorite groups.

12. Flexibility
No one service is right for everyone, so at Giganews we offer you multiple options to fit your needs. You'll also get the ability to control and monitor your service through our advanced web based Control Panel.

[Deward]

I cancelled my cable down to the bare minimum. I use giganews as a DVR for the shows I want without having to pay all the dvr fees and additional channel charges.

[Winnow]

I cancelled my cable down to the bare minimum. I use giganews as a DVR for the shows I want without having to pay all the dvr fees and additional channel charges.

I haven't had Cable (TV) in more than a year. I can get any new show, usually before it airs, in less than 5 mins. Giganews/Supersearch is the most amazing multimedia library that the majority of people don't understand or know about.

I wanted to watch risky Business last weekend. From the time I decided I wanted to watch it to when it started playing was about 6-7 minutes. That included, loading up Newleecher, searching for the movie, downloading it to a specific folder (new movies folder!), with Newsleecher auto-extracting it (DVD quality). Of course, music and smaller TV episodes would be even faster.

the usenet

Everything else, besides some live sports, is avail on the internet if I want it. CNBC, NCAA (every game), etc

[Aslanna]

Giganews still sucks due to being overpriced. Go with Agent News. Only 500 days binary retention but now they throw in SSL for free. All for $14.75. Best deal around! And if you use 70GB or less you can go even cheaper.

[Stonie]

Hmm, Agent News (APN) has a 12gb free trial. I think I might have to test them out. The 25gb/mo plan is the same limit I currently have with Giganews, but APN has free SSL and is ~$6/mo cheaper.

Thanks Aslanna!

[Winnow]

Giganews still sucks due to being overpriced. Go with Agent News. Only 500 days binary retention but now they throw in SSL for free. All for $14.75. Best deal around! And if you use 70GB or less you can go even cheaper.

How are their speeds and reliability? That's what makes giganews awesome. I max out 26.5 Mbps whenever I use Giganews.

I pulled a Fairweather and downloaded a 20 GB Blu Ray rip of Avatar that other day. Took a little less than two hours. BTW, 17K+Kbps Avatar looks very nice on an iMac 27" screen with the high dpi! Most Blu Ray rips are half that Kbps. I figured I needed one marquee movie in super hi quality to demo things from time to time.

[Aslanna]

I only have a 12 MBit/s connection so I can not answer that although I usually get steady max rate though. They allow multiple connections, I think up to 6 maybe, but I only use 4 since I didn't really notice a benefit to more. They have a 3 day trial period for unlimited though so one could always see for themselves.

Reliability-wise I don't remember having any recent problems however I don't really DL things like I used to so not really connected 24 hours a day. Once in awhile things go odd but that's to be expected with any service. I can't recall any period of long downtime.

http://www.forteinc.com/apn/index.php

[Stonie]

How are their speeds and reliability? That's what makes giganews awesome. I max out 26.5 Mbps whenever I use Giganews.

I pulled a Fairweather and downloaded a 20 GB Blu Ray rip of Avatar that other day. Took a little less than two hours. BTW, 17K+Kbps Avatar looks very nice on an iMac 27" screen with the high dpi! Most Blu Ray rips are half that Kbps. I figured I needed one marquee movie in super hi quality to demo things from time to time.

I have been using Forte/APN for a week now on my trial. It maxes out my weak-ass 3Mbps, and I haven't run into any in-completes yet. It seems like a better value over Giganews so far. I think I'm going to switch.

Winnow, you should do the free trial and see if it maxes out your download.

[Winnow]

It maxes out my weak-ass 3Mbps,

Winnow, you should do the free trial and see if it maxes out your download.

3Mbps! I can type faster than that! : )

It looks like an interesting alternative. I'm still ok paying the max on giganews. I've done so since sometime in 2005. My GB download varies but it is slowing down a bit so I could eventually check this out.

[Stonie]

I can get 6mbps for ~15 bucks more/mo. I usually start my queued downloads before I go to bed anyway, so I just don't need the extra speed and money is tight.

Forte/APN also has an unlimited plan and it's still cheaper than Giganews.

[Fairweather Pure]

I'm not going to swap from Giganews to save 5$ a month. The extra 300 days of retention alone is worth it for me. They are trying to nickel and dime their way into my pockets with lots of emailed advertising, but I simply don't need anything over and above what I currently have.

My connection is around 18-19mb, but at night I can get higher. 23mb is the fastest I have ever witnessed on my connection, and that was though giganews. I only pay for a 6mb line. Well, my wife's company actually pays for it, but my point is that it's well over what I'm supposed to be at. Anyone else getting results like this? I'm using Comcast.

[Aslanna]

I'm not going to swap from Giganews to save 5$ a month. The extra 300 days of retention alone is worth it for me. .

I'm not suggesting anyone switch I'm just throwing it out there for people as an alternative since I don't think giganews is all that. For sure it's a good service I just think it's overpriced.

Oh and Agent now has 600 days retention if you use NZB (500 if not) which a lot of posted things have.

Giganews is only 714 days (at this point) so it's not really an "extra 300 days of retention." 214 at most!

$5 a month is $60 a year! That's at least 2 decent bottles of wine.