Anyone around here ever used usenet.net? How does it work? Is it safe? What kind of downloads are in there, direct or torrent?
You download from a central server, so it's direct download and not torrents. Essentially, the newsgroup system from the 80's is now mainly used for piracy. People like it because the speeds are usually as high as they could go, even in Europe (the bottleneck being your ISP). There are two downsides however: binary retention (how long it says on the server) is not indefinite, but nowadays it is high enough not to be an issue (usenet.net has a 4 year retention policy). The second issue is that newsgroup access is usually paid (whereas torrents are free).
But it's pretty much 'legal', in a way as the content is always encrypted therefore the chances of being sued for downloading an illegal file are very slim compared to torrent. In Lebanon, it shouldn't matter anyway.
Thanks Samer and WizaRd. But regarding payments, are they safe? Can I use my credit card with peace on mind?
This is the saddest post I've come across in a while ... :'(
Why is that, Rahmu? This isn't about piracy, if that's what you're sad about. Trust me.
Ha, I'm sorry I reacted that cryptically, I owe you an explanation.

It has absolutely nothing to do with piracy or any "legal" issue. I'm just sad to discover what Usenet has become. I thought it was dead, I guess now I wish it was :-/

Usenet is an extremely old network. According to Wikipedia it exists since 1980. That's over a decade older than the WWW.

You can think of Usenet as the first ever internet forum. It was similar to what we have here on Lebgeeks in many aspects, except you did not read it with a web browser (like I said, the web did not exist back then). Usenet was the first collective effort to document human knowledge (as well as a lot of stupid crap, you know how the Internet works) in a single place. Some of the earliest memes to ever exist started on Usenet. If we were in the 80s up to mid 90s, we'd all be using it right now.

Last thing I heard was that Google bought all the Usenet archives up until early 2000s and dumped them in Google Groups. I thought this was the end.

Finding out that a bunch of kids are using the remains of the network to share "doubtful" files, not to mention making users pay a fee for access, surprised me, not in a good way. I guess I'm just sentimental...
I guess I can understand what you're saying, Rahmu. But the reason I want to explore Usenet is simply because I've never done so before. I've been running into lots of advertisement about it and I said to myself "Why do I know nothing about this?" So, I'm just going to take the trial registration and see what's inside, that's all. But they ask for a credit card to do so.
Regarding the safety of your payment I'd say its really pretty much like anything else on the web and you'll have to be careful. Your best bet is to perhaps use an 'internet card' or some prepaid stuff instead of putting your credit/debit card information.
OK, just given it a go, and it's really not worth the trouble, and it's not like the older Google groups. Those were friendlier. But while at this, does anyone know where I can get LEGAL downloads? Like pay for them? I'm talking about videos, specifically anime, full HD ones. Anybody got a clue?
As far as legal downloads I can't think of anything other than iTunes but the choice isn't that big and I'm not sure if they have animes there as well.

Usenet is a wiser choice if you insist on paying but a question mark over legality MIGHT arise but you'll be fine regardless.
No no, Usenet is out the window. What else we got? Something like anime-direct.