Newsgroup question.

[lavasaurus]

Hi. I just recently downloaded alt binz, and in fact just started using usenet of any form as well...so everything is a bit confusing for me. I've set up alt binz, and am able to search and successfully download files fine. My question regards subscribing to newsgroups.

When I first started looking into Usenet, I was under the impression that you had to subscribe to these newsgroups and search within them for files. Now, I see where you can subscribe to newsgroups in Alt.Binz, but I really don't understand the purpose. Even without any subscriptions, I can use the various searches and receive results. Am I...missing something? What is the purpose of newsgroups?

Thank you.

[Petrovski]

This isn't really an altbinz issue, but what you're missing is NZB. Before NZB was created, the only way to get binaries from usenet was by subscribing to a newsgroup, download the headers from it, select what files you want and download the body(binary) of each of those messages. A NZB file holds all the info needed for a newsreader to download the binary messages, without the need to download headers from newsgroups.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NZB