Forgive the grabs, they were taken
while I ran Grabit using WINE on Mandriva.
Grabit is for Windows based computers but runs quite happily , as you
can see, using an emulator on other OS'es.
To get Grabit, simply click the title of the article and it will take
you to their webpage.
Above you can see Grabit running and displaying the contents of a
binary newsgroup.
Grabit is free to use, and Shemes ( the company who owns Grabit) hope
to get money from people using Newsgroups by incorporating
their Grabit Usenet search engine.
I'll assume that everyone has downloaded and installed the software.
Setting it up is extremely simple.
Fill in the details of the newsserver of your internet provider, set
the port (usually 119), put in your username and password (if you need
them to access your server)
and then right click on your default newserver and select full update
of groups.
Grabit will then download the list of groups your newserver provides.
You'll probably find that most of the popular cheap and cheerful ISP's
only provide the text groups and a very few binary groups.
If you decide newsgroups are interesting enough, there are an awful lot
of Usenet providers out there eager to take your money.
Most of these will have limits on how much you can download and at what
speed, and how comprehensive a list of groups they provide.
Another thing to watch out for is the retention rate they have on the
groups.
You will pay more for higher retention levels.
Retention levels mean how long the provider keeps the article on its
server.
Mine guarantees retention rates of 3 days!
The dollar exchange rate means that American providers are winning the
price battle at present.
Most have monthly contracts as well, with some having trial
periods which will let you see how good their service is.
Ok, time for a (very) quick explanation of the first grab.
On the left we can see the list of groups I've decided to subscribe to
as an example.
They're all binary groups and there's a combination of music and video
groups.
In the grab, I'm exploring the alt.binaries.sounds.radio.oldtime.
On the right, this shows the content of the group.
Should have mentioned how to subscribe to groups.
Simply download the list of groups as above, search through them , and
, when you see one that might interest you, right click on it and
select subscribe.
There, that was hard.
The tabs at the top of the grab show the group articles, then you have
batch (one job showing in grab 2), third tab shows all groups on your
server and finally the tab for the Grabit search engine.
The Grabit search engine does allow so many free searches, but to get
the most from it, you pay for searches.
To find out what is in a particular group, update it .
Again, right click on a group and select either incremental update or
full update.
This task appears on the batch tab. Grab 2 shows this happening.
At the bottom of the grab, you can see your download rate and upload
rate, as well as how many connections you are using to your newsserver.
Mine only allows 3 consecutive connections and this varies between
providers.
Grabit will automatically use as many connections as your newsserver
allows.
More quick explanation of the first grab.
You'll notice that most of the articles are mp3 files, while others are
marked as Par2 files.
Wouldn't it be terrible if you downloaded a movie in RAR format,
consisting of 150 pieces, then discovered you couldn't unrar it because
one piece was corrupt?
That's what Par2 files are for.
They help repair corrupt (or missing) downloads.
You used to do this by manually repairing the files using the Par2
files, but Grabit does it transparently.
Unraring files is also done automatically if you so desire.
Since some binaries are very large (such as DVD vob files), Grabit is
designed to set up downloads , then leave it to get on with it.
From the preferences, you can see the part dealing with Par files.
I've left most of these options at their defaults.
The preferences are fairly self explanatory and are a breeze to set ,
if you decide to change them.
I found the interface clean and easy to use from the first use, but you
can alter them to suit your own tastes, or needs.
Above, the part where Shemes intends to get their money back for the
development of Grabit.
As for the majority of Grabit, it is easily understood and simple to
set.
This part aids you if , for instance, some parts of your download is
missing.
This ties in with the Par handling. The Par files should be enough to
repair a missing piece.
Another part of the interface . Alter to suit your taste.
Grabit also has preferences dealing with your history on Usenet and how
to deal with it.
Choose where you want to store your files and the cache for the
newsgroups.
Since connections can go down, set your auto save options and the
information tab updates.
You can also post using Grabit.
I haven't mentioned the nzb import either.
As with many other newsgroup grabbers/downloaders, Grabit can use nzb
files.
They're , more or less, batch files.
Instead of clicking on all the individual files for a download, posters
can upload a nzb file, which contains the list of the files required.
Import the nzb file and it will batch all the files for downloading.
I've used Grabit for a few weeks now, and it really is impressively
easy and intuitive to use.
The layout and icons are expressive and simplify useage of Grabit.
The integral Par and rar handling works well.
I recommend everyone to, at least, give this a try.
It is the dog's bollocks and makes downloading large amounts of
material from Usenet very easy.