What Is Binjet

Working With Usenet Using Newsreaders

Newsreaders are applications designed to work with the Usenet. "Binary" newsreaders are newsreaders optimized to work with Usenet binary groups. They give you more power and comfort when you are downloading large binary files from Usenet groups. However, due to the nature of the Usenet and the amount of data posted to it daily, there are a number of things that make using newsreaders frustrating at times:

• Most of newsreaders are too complex to be used by an average mortal. They tend to confuse even experienced Usenet users.
• Before downloading content, you have to download huge numbers of articles headers. In some groups on good commercial servers, there are millions of articles. Downloading their headers takes a long time. Then, your newsreader may die while trying to digest them.
• To choose files to download, you have to look through the headers.
• Some groups are polluted with irrelevant/advertising articles (spam), and you have to deal with them. You can set up filters to detect and skip spam, but spammers find new ways to get to you.
• Files that you want may be posted to a number of different groups, and you have to browse all of them to find what you want. Cross-group search is not a standard feature.
• You may have access to several news servers, and you would like to make the best use of your resources, but this is not always easy to do. For example, if some file parts are available on one server, and other parts are on the other, you may end up assembling the file manually.

Binjet And Usenet Search Engines

Most people find what they want on the Web using a search engine. How do you do it? Easily! You make a query, get a hit list, click on a link and bingo! You got it. Wouldn't it be nice to do the same with Usenet data? Surely, it would. This is what Usenet search engines and Binjet are for.

A Usenet search engine indexes Usenet contents and allows you to search and browse binary groups using your Web browser. But, when it comes to downloading, your Web browser needs help. This is because the actual content resides on news servers. They speak a different protocol, different people have access to different servers, and there is an extra work that needs to be done after downloading articles to get the files to their original state. They need to be decoded and assembled. Binjet works together with your Web browser and does all that needed to get files for you after you have clicked on the link of your choice. Compared to newsreaders, using Usenet search engines and the Web browser + Binjet alliance has a number of obvious advantages:

• You can do cross-groups search and don't have to visit every possible group to find files that you are looking for.
• You don't have to download and browse through millions of articles headers to select files to download.
• Good search engines group articles into sets, as they were originally posted by posters, thus reducing often huge groups to relatively few collections of related files. Browsing groups and search results is very easy. You can visit only collections that attract your attention and ignore the rest.
• Search engines also detect and filter out spam, and you don't have to do it yourself. Even if your spam filter is perfect, your newsreader has to download spam headers anyway, before recognising them as spam and discarding.
• Binjet automatically decodes and assembles large files - a feature that is not supported by every newsreader.
• Binjet lets you use multiple news servers transparently in the most optimal mode - a set of features unmatched by any newsreader:
  • Binjet can automatically assemble files even if they are partially available on different news servers. It will get parts from wherever they are available to put the file together.
  • You can take the most of your traffic from a free/local/fast server, and fetch missing parts from a good commercial server for which you pay. This lets you use your paid account sparingly.
  • You have full control over which servers will be used heavily and which only when an article can't be found anywhere else.
  • Binjet downloads multiple articles in parallel. The number of parallel connections to use is controlled by you. There is no practical limit on the number of connections that Binjet can use.
  • Binjet uses connection resources sensibly. Every open connection puts an extra load on the server. Binjet will not open new connections if there is no extra bandwidth available anyway.
  • Binjet gives you full control over the use of bandwidth. You can configure it to use all your Internet connection bandwidth or spare some for other applications.
  • You can always see what Binjet is doing and configure it to suit your needs in most optimal way.

How It All Works

Usenet servers receive, store and serve news articles posted by Usenet users. Usenet search engines retrieve from the news servers, summarise and index information about available articles. They allow you to submit queries using your Web browser, they use the indexes to process your queries, form and send back to you HTML pages presenting results of your searches.

When you click on a link or a button, indicating that you want to get a file or a set of files, the search engine forms a small task definition file and sends it to your browser. This file contains information describing what articles to get from news servers and how to put their contents together in order to satisfy your request. The browser can't do it itself. Instead, it passes this file to Binjet (if you select "Open File") or saves this file to disk (if you select "Save File As...") and you can open it with Binjet later.

Binjet knows how to use information in the file to get the goods for you. It uses news servers accounts that you configured, to find and download all articles necessary to complete your request. It does this, then decodes attachments, assembles files, if needed, and saves them to disk.