NZB files were developed by Newzbin.com, which is actually a commercial NZB file listing site. NZB files store information only on the files you are looking for. When combined with a Newsreader that supports NZB files, ONLY headers specific to the files you want are downloaded. So if you have an NZB file with information on a 700MB movie file that has 47 parts, simply opening the NZB file in your Newsreader is all you need to be able to download the entire 700MB movie (in 47 parts). No more downloading 100s of thousands of headers and browsing through them for parts etc.
Additionally, NZB files are open source, allowing anyone to to use and implement the technology. This has lead to NZB sites popping up all over the world. The legality of NZB sites is questionable depending on the content and the location of the site in the world. It's a difficult call even if an NZB site exists solely to offer NZB files for copyrighted content posted to binary groups. Like BitTorrent trackers, NZB indexing sites do not actually offer copyrighted content, just NZB files. There is one more main difference between the two that could be the difference between being legal and illegal.
Torrent files have information about the tracker that will assist users to find Peers to download the files and share with; NZB files will work with any news server that carries the group the files were posted to (obviously, completion and retention could be an issue depending on the server). Therefore, you could say having an NZB file is no different to just having the information about the messages you need to download from a group.
Finding NZB files
To find an NZB file is quite simple. Sites hosting NZB files are popping up every day, both free and commercial. For this article I will only mention two, one commercial and one free, but both are excellent in their own way.
Newzbin.com - This site looks like many torrent sites would look like. It includes sections like Movies, Music, Console, Games, Books, Misc, TV, Emulation, Anime, PDA etc. Literally hundreds of items are added daily. This site is not free, but incredibly cheap at $0.50 (€0.35) per week. User have a lot of customization power over the display of the site and the categories. Downloading NZB's from this site is simple.
Click whichever section you want, for this article I'll just say Music. Anything highlighted has been added recently. Once you find something listed you would like, click it. Now you will see information including what group it was posted to, the complete file sizes etc. and there will be a list of the files. For example, if you found an album you would like to download, then the individual MP3 files may be listed depending on whether or not the MP3 was packed into several archive files. You can now unselect any files you don't want simply by unticking the checkbox beside the file name. When you have only the files you want selected, click Get Message-IDs. Your browser will now prompt you to download the NZB file.
Binaries.nl - This site is not exactly like Newzbin.com. Here instead of simply clicking on a category and looking through a list of items posted, you actually navigate through the groups themselves and just select anything you want. Each file will have an NZB button, if you click this then only that file's details will be included in the resulting NZB file (even if you have other files selected). If you want to download several files, then select what you want and click Create NZB. You can also click Add to Queue, this will allow you to visit multiple pages and select files to keep adding to the queue, you can then create an NZB file from those when you are finished also. Another difference between this site and Newzbin.com is that it's free. Another site like this also exists called binsearch.info which is also free but has higher retention and more Newsgroups to browse.
NZB files and Newsbin Pro
Newsbin Pro fully supports NZB files. When you install Newsbin Pro, files with a .NZB extension will be associated with it. This means that when you download an NZB file from the Internet, you can just double click it and the files it references will automatically begin downloading in Newsbin Pro. Any PAR2 files referenced will be listed under Scratch in Newsbin Pro in case you need them later.
Now we will take a look at a couple of extra settings in Newsbin Pro that you can edit that might help you.
NZB files were developed by Newzbin.com, which is actually a commercial NZB file listing site. NZB files store information only on the files you are looking for. When combined with a Newsreader that supports NZB files, ONLY headers specific to the files you want are downloaded. So if you have an NZB file with information on a 700MB movie file that has 47 parts, simply opening the NZB file in your Newsreader is all you need to be able to download the entire 700MB movie (in 47 parts). No more downloading 100s of thousands of headers and browsing through them for parts etc.
