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I was able to use the PPA to upgrade my install on Ubuntu 14.04 and everything went smoothly.

The new theme looks really good!

Also check out:

Sick Beard - 'Internet PVR for TV Shows' (can use SABnzbd for as a backend)

http://sickbeard.com

Couch Potato - Similar to Sick Beard but for movies

https://couchpota.to

NZBGet - alternative to SABnzbd written in C++ but still open source

http://nzbget.net

SickBeard appears to be stale, and the replacement options for it are Sonarr[0] and SickRage[1].

There is also Headphones[2] - similar to CouchPotato and SickBeard/Rage/Sonarr but for music.

[0] https://sonarr.tv/ [1] https://github.com/SickRage/SickRage [2] https://github.com/rembo10/headphones

Oh wow. I've been out of it a while (just use Hulu / Netflix / Prime these days). I'll have to check these out. Headphones I used before but it wasn't very reliable at the time.
That's a common refrain I hear about Headphones - buggy and not really reliable.
(comment deleted)
Yep, although SickRage's website is truly awful the software is a great upgrade from Sickbeard. Sonarr I have tried several times and it bugged out every time.
Not sure when the last time you tried it was, but it's been a ton more stable within the last 6 months when on the latest stable mono version.
mono has really been source of many of our issues on non-windows platforms, hopefully we can switch to .NET Core soon and have a more multiplatform runtime.
Last tried it about 2 months ago from memory, very buggy then.
Disclaimer: I'm one of the founders of sonarr,

Sickbeard is an abandoned project, last commit was ~ year ago. there are multiple fork of Sickbeard, (Sickrage is big one but has had some internal drama), obviously I would recommend Sonarr :p

Love me some Sonarr. Great work.
Thanks :D, glad you find it useful.
I dropped Sickbeard/SickRage for Sonarr a few months ago. I'm very happy with the change. Especially with the better support for torrents and easier to use UI.

Thanks for all your hard work on the project!

Thanks, that's generally the feedback we get, when people switch they are generally very happy, but I guess that might just be the feedback loop.
Is there a way to make Sonarr work with a single download folder? Sickbeard also did not officially support it, but you were able to make it work with enough configuration and scripts. That's the only reason I still use it. I just have two big folders (watched and unwatched) and a hotkey to move stuff between them. It's simple and I don't need to use a mouse. I wouldn't want to give this up.
Copying another reply:

Sonarr supports as many root folders as you want, the only restrictions is that a single show is limited to a single folder, so tvs1/show1 and tvs2/show2 is completely valid, but watched/show1 and unwatched/show1 is not.

I'm not entirely sure if it was Sonarr, but one of the crawlers didnt support multiple media folders. Which is really annoying.
Sonarr supports as many _root folders_ as you want, the only restrictions is that a single show is limited to a single folder, so `tvs1/show1` `tvs2/show2` is completely valid, but `tvs1/show1` `tvs2/show1` is not.
I was really surprised how fast Sonarr renders HTML pages, compared to Sickbeard it felt like it was 10x faster.
Sonarr is a SPA, also our backend is C# vs python, which generally leads to better performance (contrary to what a lot of criticism we get, "why did you go with C# it's so slow" ok...).

The other part is that I did performance work for few years as my main job so I would say that adds a bit as well. right now we are working on refreshed UI which will be even more snappy.

Ah, that new Glitter skin is so great!
SABnzbd: One of these perfect 'just works' software that does its job (and even more) without ever bothering you.

Congratz for the 1.0.0 milestone !

Can someone explain why people still utilize Usenet over BitTorrent? I'm sure there are good reasons, it just seems like a bizarre anachronism to me.
No upload element. Obscurity keeps it out of the targets a lot of times. Though DMCA requests definitely have a strong reach into Usenet now.
The week I spent setting NZBs and all this archaic stuff up (subscribing to NZB providers... which ones again... well they keep going out of business... sigh) and setting up Sickbeard and Headphones and everything was a complete waste when the production companies began their assault on Usenet.

It became functionally less useful than Bittorrent immediately. Tons of stuff I could find on torrent sites were just not available on Usenet.

My experience was a complete waste of time and money setting everything up.

I just did made the setup a couple of weeks ago, it was pretty easy and works fantastically. The only thing stopping me is my lack of storage.

How does this assult effect you?

You need to join closed indexers which index obfuscated files.
Any recommendations? I'd like to get in on the fun :P
Check /r/usenet
Usenet is so much superior to BT or the "new" OCHs.

Always fullspeed, no waiting times, no problems fetching ~10 year old files. (if your providers retention rate is high enough) And great automation.

Just config your setup once and then just open Kodi each day and check what is new :)

What's your provider? I'm on Giganews and while retention is pretty high, old files (>2 years) almost always are a problem for me. Something is missing, and there are not enough of pars to fix. This happened so much that I no longer bother with anything above 2 years.
DMCA take-down notices affect Usenet much more than Bittorrent.

The problem with Usenet is that it's centralized.

Eweka + Newsoo block. But YMMV, I usually get older non-english stuff.
For the same cost as a Usenet provider and indexer (some indexers have a fee(s)), you could easily buy a little torrent seed box. I find torrent sites are much more organized in their content libraries and more reliable for quick, complete downloads - especially with a dedicated torrent box doing the work.

That is not to mention the added benefit of using remote storage so you don't have to have multiple TBs of drives around, and the opportunity to run a Plex server right from the box.

As a Usenet subscriber a couple years ago I have had the opposite experience you described: multiple failed downloads, poor retention, bad labeling (often foreign language content downloaded by mistake), and high barrier of entry for automation (relatively). I used DogNZB and combined multiple provider block accounts for redundancy.

Alternatively, the private tracker community is much larger and more active than the Usenet community in my experience. And they don't charge you for access. The seedbox situation outlined above can be just as automatic (autodl-irssi for one example) and often much faster (dedicated euroservers often burst to ~100Mbps to 1Gbps depending).

In Switzerland uploading copyrighted content is illegal but downloading is not.

And beside that, speed is much better.

It's generally faster especially for unpopular items, it's more anonymous and its illegal to use p2p in many countries.
The only entity that knows what you are downloading is the usenet provider you are paying to access usenet in the first place.
SABnzbd has been a must-have piece of software for me for years. Thank you team!

If people are interested in indexers, https://www.oznzb.com seems to be ok for finding a few files. Personally I use DOGnzb, but I don't believe it is public. (Sorry I don't have any invites I can hand out either, I checked)

Torrents?

SABnzbd + DOGnzb + tweaknews :)

One of the best way to download these days is DirectDownload.tv. If anyone wants an invite pm me mynickname@yopmail.com (free, no advertisement, private, ultra fast and reliable).

Otherwise, a good nzb indexer: https://www.nzbclub.com/

Okay, so I've been sending invite to everyone asking, but that's it for today. You can keep emailing me I'll send more tomorrow.
Thanks for the invite
I'm back if anyone wants an intivte. mynickname@yopmail.com
Been using it for years and love it.
I don't understand why I need a provider to get into Usenet. Whenever I read about it, it seems like in the old times it was part of the service ISPs would give, but now I need to pay someone to get in. Can't I set up my own provider for myself?
I believe you can browse Usenet for free. The "providers", as far as I know, charge for indexing and guaranteed retention - not just pure access.
My sense has always been that it's a LOT of data to be moving around. I have Comcast, and they used to provide Usenet access with their internet access. But your average internet user doesn't really have an interest in Usenet. I think it's a very niche thing, even for "advanced internet users", whatever that may mean. And these days it seems to me (I may be totally off base here, though) that it's used primarily for pirating media. So it's likely just not worth the cost for ISPs to continue to provide the storage space and bandwidth to maintain support for this.
> but now I need to pay someone to get in

There are free text-only gateways ( eternal-september.org being one that I used to use ). You generally only have to pay if you want to access the binary groups, due to the TB of data invovled.

You can still, in theory, set up your own server to peer with other Usenet servers but it's very rare nowadays. Centralisation isn't unique to the Web.

USENET is about "peering" and always has been. You certainly can set up your own server - organisations used to have their own internal ones - but if you want a particular set of newsgroups you have to persuade someone to send them to you.

This is usually a lot of bandwidth.

Also, because there is no security in USENET, there's a disincentive to peer with sites that don't effectively remove spammers and other forms of abuse.

I used to use SABnzbd + Sickbeard all the time a few years ago. My setup fell apart when my crummy Synology processor couldn't keep up with the load of all the files I was trying to download. I need to build a better NAS and get that setup back.