The Best Free NZB Search, Usenet Search & NZB Sites of February 2010

The last time we rounded up the scene's NZB sites was way back in July 2009 and despite the fact we said we'd update with a new round up monthly, we clearly lied as that never happened! The NZB site list has changed over the past 6 months; we've seen sites drop off due to Ukrainian raids and the rest of the sites we mentioned grow even larger and indeed better than they were before, so now seems a good as time as ever to update that list and perhaps make a few more fake promises about us updating it more often in the future (joke, we shall....want to help?).

One comment we did receive a few times about the article was that it could be more detailed and perhaps split up into better categories so we've invested a bit more time into doing that this time. Anyway:

NZB Sites

No Registration Required

NZBClub - Nice interface, raw and grouped header searches, lots of information provided, watch list, history, hot searches. We like.
Binsearch.info - Very good clutter-free interface. Allows browsing raw headers but also groups headers into posts, lacks the manual editing Newzbin has though.
TVNZB - Exceptional for TV, obviously useless for anything else. Lists all shows known to mankind and their associated NZB files in an easy to read manner.
MegaNZB - Similar to Binsearch but with more clutter. Groups headers automatically into posts.
NewzBox - Search individual files or collections. If you register you can get watch-list functionality and create bookmarks.
NZBIndex - Groups posts nicely and works well with the nzbdStatus Firefox plugin we wrote about for SabNZBd+.
Yabsearch - Clean like Google but lacking information; simple to use but doesn't list which newsgroup the posts are in (not that that matters with NZBs).
BinTube - very similar again, also offers a client and Usenet access.
NZBTvSeeker - Honestly, we don't rate this highly, it's very messy. TVNZB is better for the TV niche.

Registration Required

While the non-registration required scene is mostly based around raw search and automatic grouping of headers into posts, sites which require registration usually have more of community feel and often have NZBs posted by users themselves, which allows them to use real names and extra detail rather than just relying on the post headers or file names.

Merlins Portal [Posts]
Nzbmatrix [Posts]
Nzbsrus [Posts]
NzbNation [Posts]
FileSharingTalkNZBs [Posts]

Currently closed registration or Invite Required

NZBs(dot)ORG - Bot based indexer, groups by headers. Registration was free but it currently closed.
Newzbin - Currently going through court as we speak. Newzbin has both raw header search and manually added reports but has recently suffered from MPA requests to delete posts. There was no doubting that Newzbin used to be the most comprehensive index of Usenet, hopefully it will return to its former glory if they win their trial (ending in the next week..).

We don't quite have time at the moment to sign up to all of these so please post your comments about them below, however short. We're looking at coding up a top site list (a non-shit non-spammy one I might add) with user reviews so that should help in the future.

RIP?

Backup, backup, backup again.

If there's a lesson to be learnt, it's above. The last six months have seen us lose Newzleech to a Ukrainian raid (which wasn't their fault); they lost a lot of data due to not having backups and despite saying they'd be back in the new year we're guessing the rewriting of the scripts didn't go as well as planned. On top of that we've also seen NZBMovieSeeker.com disappear for a while:

We had to suffer a major crash caused by a virus which deleted our hosting account and database. We will be back. First we are going to implend a simple version of nzbmovieseeker , which will show the newest releases only.(whitin a week). When we have some free time , we will continu working on nzbmovieseeker v2. ( within a couple of months). nzbmovieseeker will survive !

via the current frontpage of nzbmovieseeker

Both of these would have been prevented with off-site backups; or time travel with a bit of hindsight.

New to NZBs?

You'll need a provider first these days..try out a free trial with one of these:

Giganews - Top of the range, you're paying a premium ($30/mon for an encrypted SSL line) but well worth it. 14 days free trial.
Newshosting - Our first choice when it comes to value, quality connection. $15/mon for unlimited bandwidth and free encryption? Bargain. 14 days free trial.
Binverse - Comes with a free client to get you going with ease. 14 days free trial.
Easynews - One of the oldest commercial Usenet providers still around. Provides web access to Usenet via a browser interface (optional). 14 days free trial.

Enjoy your downloading and please don't hesitate to leave a comment telling us we've a) forgotten a site or b) that we're wrong! Cheers.

Update

Added BinTube which we forgot and FileSharingTalk thanks to sassanix from reddit. Also added a section for sites which currently have invite-only or closed registration.

Update 2

Newzleech returns! Apr.2010

Newzleech.com has returned after its 5 month outage.