Usenet as daily driver works 99% of the time. Only use VPN/torrents for extremely new or very obscure shows. $5/month pays for unlimited Usenet and VPN.
This UsenetServer discount link gives you 1 trial month for $1, then $50/year after that, and includes a 1TB TweakNews block and a paid PrivadoVPN account.
This was discussed on reddit a bit ago. The same company in place now ran IPVanish and they logged and rolled over on the user. No reason to think they wouldnt do the same with privado and if you are ultra worried tin foil hat-ish, would they do the same with their usenet? who knows. https://torrentfreak.com/ipvanish-no-logging-vpn-led-homeland-security-to-comcast-user-180505/
yes seems silly they would do it for usenet but i would have said the same thing a few years ago about vpn. i guess things are fine until they arent.. my main surprise in the vpn case was their willingness to work with the feds. they told them once we dont have anything and then THEY contacted the feds and said hey, ask again why dont you.
Only use VPN/torrents for extremely new or very obscure shows
Interesting, I would have thought torrents would be better for older stuff due to their theoretically infinite retention. Like, can you find, say, LOTR: The Return of the King on Usenet at the moment? Someone has to have uploaded it in the past ~2 years (retention period) or something for it to be available, right?
Afaik most usenet providers have a retention period of 3000+ days (some even reaching 4000+). I've downloaded multiple things from the 90s without any problems. The oldest media in my collection is from 1957, so retention really isn't a problem I would say.
LOTR = anything from 4K HDR 7.1 Atmos, down to DVD is available (theoretically, as you can have items that exists, but can’t be fully downloaded so don’t work, because of DMCA and other things). The oldest release I see is 5800 days old and the newest is 4 days old. So people keep reuploading stuff if it’s popular enough. (I still can’t find some episodes of Ben 10 tv show lol)