SABnzbd Forums

I tried to find a solution for this using google and found this thread: http://forums.sabnzbd.org/viewtopic.php?t=8355

Basically I have the same problem.

I have an account on Usenext. They offer a fast download mode with limited download (ie. 10GB). Once the limit is reached you can still use their services for the rest of the month with a limited speed flatrate (2000kbit/sec which in truth is more like 1000 but ok).

As I read in the above mentioned thread, it doesn't help to reduce the speed on my side to make use of the free flatrate. The Tangyclient supports the free mode, where you can switch between the slow and the fast mode on the fly. Now I wonder if it would be possible to do similar with the SABnzb software, or if there is any other client that can do this? The disadvantage of the Tangy client is that it runs only on Windows, while I want to run the downloads on my linux server.

As far as I can see this free mode is an option that somehow has to transmitted to the server, because when I do netstat, the same IP addresses for the news server show up like when I'm in fast mode. So it seems not to be just a switch to a different NNTP host.

The only other alternative that I see is to install a VM Ware or similar solution to run the tangy client from within the linux box, which is not exactly a good solution in my opinion.

I don't really want a discussion to not use Usenext, because this is not what I'm asking for, unless you know a provider with similar retention (1500 days).

Even if you may not want to hear it: usenext & co are extremely bad value, even if they would life up to their promises and not scam you. But seeing your other thread, you have started to see the light about that already. This "tangyclient" is nothing but usenext's very own client, no matter how hard they try to present it as just another random usenet client. If usenext really wanted to support this extreme slowmotion mode of theirs in normal usenet clients, it would be trivial for them to enforce a speed limit server side. The fact that they don't, is just their way of forcing you to use their own client software.

The advise from the old thread still holds today: free yourself of usenext and get better service elsewhere. Actual unlimited (speed and d/l amount) can be had at good quality providers for less than the cheapest usenext offering. For small amounts (less than 50 GB a month or so) get a block account somewhere, you can easily find pricing below €0.10 per GB. At usenext pricing levels, there's simply no usage case where any of their plans are anywhere near decent value.

Yeah, I was looking into that while I waited for a response, and saw that astraweb seems to offer a better deal, so I guess I will switch nevertheless.

I feared that this slowmode would be some kind of proprietary option on their newsserver, but I thought that there is some way to get around it. I could analize this tangyclient to see how it is sending this mode switch, but considering that I can get three months for 20USD at astraweb, it's definitely not worth the hassle. The only good thing about this client, that it's searching is quite nice, even though it could use some improvements. On the other hand I fetl a bit cheated that the linux version of their client is just a hidden, packed up windows app in a wrapper and not even maintained in sync with the "real" windows version. I saw that this older client doesn't work well on linux. So these are other reasons to switch as well.