Introducing Unison

I recently wrote an article about Usenet, explaining how this old Internet discussion system (first used in 1980) is still popular among the geek community for sharing information and files. Today, I will take a look at the most popular Usenet client for the Mac, known as Unison and explain how you can use it to get started with Usenet.

Unison by Panic is from the same team that brought us the awesome Transmit and Coda (two of my favourite Mac applications). Like all of Panic's software (and their blog) their attention to detail is unbelievable and the application looks and feels like it was designed by Apple. Unison is available at the bargain price of £18, however they also offer a free trial (including access) to get you started. Head over to Panic's website for a link to the download.

When you first launch Unison you will be greeted with the following welcome page:

As explained in my previous article, to use Usenet you will need access to a Usenet server. These servers are often provided by your ISP or you can subscribe to a dedicated service from a Usenet provider, such as Giganews or UseNetServer. Thankfully, Panic also offers Usenet access which you can trial for 24hours by clicking "I'd like to see what's on usenet" from the welcome page.

If you already have access to a Usenet server then you need configure Unison to connect to it. This can be done by clicking "I have a usenet server already" from the welcome page or by selecting "Unison > Servers > Edit Servers" from the menu-bar (as seen in the image below).

Once selected you will be prompted to enter your Usenet server configuration (which should have been supplied by your provider). As you can see in the image below I have configured multiple ways of connecting to the Panic Usenet server.

Once connected to the Usenet server you are ready to start browsing the newsgroups or searching for specific content. To browse the newsgroups you can either use Unisons inbuilt categories by selecting "Directory" from the left panel (as seen below).

Alternatively you can browse the Usenet server by selecting "All groups" from the left panel or searching using the spotlight search (like Mac OS X) in the top right corner.

Although these tools are incredibly powerful, sometimes you just want to find a specific file to download. In this scenario simply click Search from the left panel. You will then be prompted with a binary newsgroup search engine (by default BinSearch). From here you can search for any file and download it by clicking "Create NZB".

Once you have clicked "Create NZB", Unison will instantly begin downloading the selected file or files.

The speed of the download will depend on your Internet connection and the capacity of the Usenet server you are connected to, however in my experience the majority of dedicated Usenet servers can easily max out a home broadband Internet connection.

This brings me to an end of my quick introduction to Unison. You are now ready to search, share and download like a Usenet pro. If you haven't already, your next step is to head over to Panic's website and download the free trial, then grab your free 24 hour Usenet access. As with all Mac software this is the best way to find out if Unison and Usenet is right for you.

What is Usenet?

Ever heard of Usenet? It is a system that has been around since 1980, although has not received much attention since the dawn of the broadband era. That being said, Usenet is still alive and well and has a few tricks up its sleeve.

So what is Usenet? Let's start at the beginning. Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. Users read and post messages to one or more categories, known as newsgroups. These newsgroups are organised into hierarchies of subjects, for example "comp.", which covers computer-related discussions (e.g. comp.software and comp.sys.mac). The system can be thought of as the predecessor to modern day Internet forums.

So what makes Usenet special? Usenet has no central authority. Instead you have a number of newsgroup servers distributed across the globe, normally hosted by organisations and institutions, Internet service providers and dedicated Usenet service providers. When an end user posts to a news server, the message is stored locally on that server. That news server then forwards the message to all of its network neighbours that haven't yet seen the article. The message then continues to propagate across other news servers, however only one copy of a message is stored per server. The image below helps explain the process:

As you can see from the diagram, a collection of Usenet servers has a peer-to-peer (P2P) feel to it, in that each server shares resources by exchanging them. However the big difference is that the end users don't share the resources like they would with other traditional P2P systems, such as BitTorrent.

So why use Usenet? We mentioned that the Usenet messaging system is like a predecessor to Internet forums. This in itself is not that exciting, however Usenet also has the ability for users to share files (of any size). When you search the news server you are connected to for a particular file, it will check to see if any matching content has been propagated (and chances are it has). This means that you are able to download this content directly from your news server (even over SSL), while not having to re-share (upload) the content like on a traditional P2P network.

This gives you a basic overview of Usenet, which should be enough to get you started. As with all things, the best way to learn is to get stuck in and therefore my suggestion is to head over to Panic's website (the guys behind the awesome Transmit and Coda) to download the free trial of Unison, which is their award winning Usenet client for the Mac. Panic even offer a free 24 hour pass to their news server to help get you started.

In the following weeks, I will post a follow-up detailing how to get started with Unison and take advantage of it's advanced (but simple) feature set. Until then, have a play and don't worry you can't break anything.