Im very paranoid about getting into piracy and im not sure if i should or it or not but there are so many things i want that i cant afford.

is there a secure linux os that i can use without a vpn? im pretty use to windows 10 but i was told linux mint is good for this kind of stuff, is that true?

  • variants@possumpat.io
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    1 year ago

    You can use usenet to not use a VPN but then you are paying for the indexers and servers so still not free

      • andrew@lemmy.stuart.fun
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        1 year ago

        Free or just included with your internet service? I remember getting usenet as an ISP perk long ago. No idea if they indexed any binary newsgroups though.

        • db2@sopuli.xyz
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          1 year ago

          Included with service. Then they stopped doing it citing cost, not unlike how they don’t give you an email address anymore. I’m not sure I believe either excuse tbh.

          • The Doctor@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            The amount of space required to maintain an NNTP spool was considerable before Usenet spam because the problem it is today. When I was in undergrad (late 90’s), the college I went to had an NNTP server for on-campus use. In 1998 it had something like 2TB of disk space (I don’t want to think about how much that cost back then). I can’t imagine that the spam has gotten better, or the amount of disk space needed for just the alt.* hierarchy has gone down since that time.

            • db2@sopuli.xyz
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              1 year ago

              And back in 1998 we were paying the equivalent of $200 in today money per month for crappy slow internet access. They weren’t hurting.

                • db2@sopuli.xyz
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                  1 year ago

                  But crappy slow has changed too, it was less than 1Mbps then. Dialup users had it worse yet, 48Kbps theoretical.

      • variants@possumpat.io
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        1 year ago

        So there’s a map somewhere online about which backbones there are, usually I try one server for a year and maybe get a block from another server depending if it’s on a different backbone and their black Friday deals.

        I currently am using eweka as the service and for indexers I’m on drunkenslug and nzbgeek