I have a paid Usenet account with good retention and I download through sabnzbd. I’ve only ever used nzbindex.com as an indexer.
For a long time it was easy to find TV/movies but in recent years it’s become almost impossible. Has Usenet become a bad option because of takedowns or am I missing a modern way of using it?
I see there are lots of binaries posted with cryptic or random string names. Are these supposed to be regular TV/movies etc. with obfuscated names so they can’t be found and taken down?
Do better/private indexers give access to these files or otherwise solve not being to find anything? Is it still supposed to be possible to find reliable new release shows and movies?
Are Sonarr/Radarr are what I need, do they solve the problem of not being able to find files, or do they just provide more convenience for the same files I can already find?
The provider is there to access the usenet, just like you pay your internet provider to access the internet (well, not exactly like that in a technical sense, but you get what I mean I hope). And yes, while there are some free indexers they are basically useless - so you do have to pay for both, usenet access and an indexer. It should still be cheaper than a seedbox though.
To start I’d recommend frugal Usenet for 40$ a year if you are mostly downloading new stuff:
https://billing.frugalusenet.com/signup/neQeZxl
If you are also downloading a lot of older (think 10+ years) stuff you should get ewaka for 48€/year (or keep an eye out for the 36€ year deal that pops up a few times per year):
https://www.eweka.nl/en/landing/special-deal
Let me know if you need more help :)
edit: good indexers to start are NZBgeek (open registration) or Drunkenslug (closed registration, but there are a lot of invites going around). Both cost 15-20€ per year