Introduction:
 

alt.binaries.warez.ibm-pc and the other "warez"-related groups constitute the world's largest software-evaluation library, dedicated to the preservation of warez for all. The Warez (pronounced "wares") Community has come together to compile answers to some of your most Frequently Asked Questions, as well as providing some assorted tips and tricks to help you to get the most from ABWI and other binary groups.

This FAQ owes a great debt to those FAQs that have gone before it and to the people who wrote them, starting with the Inner Circle, who founded alt.binaries.warez.ibm-pc, and wrote the first of these Warez FAQs back in 1996, and who made this corner of UseNet the best place to find software for evaluation.

At the bottom of every page of this FAQ you will find the motto "All software that is used should be purchased." Having the ability to give a true evaluation to software is the goal of ABW*, but we do recognize that software development is an expensive process, and that many of the best applications come from smaller software companies with limited resources. If we want them to continue to produce these fine applications we have to do our part: If, after a true evaluation, it is determined that the software does indeed fulfill its promise and the needs of the evaluator, and is used on a regular basis, then we firmly believe it should be purchased.
 

The Basics:

First: Never respond to a "Warez FTP site" or "Warez Sign-up List" message.
Most are trolls (come-ons) designed to entice you to respond with a "me too" and expose yourself to the warez-world as a total newbie. At best you'll begin receiving commercial e-mail (junk mail or spam) and at worst you may be subjected to harassment, mail bombing, viruses, Trojans, or worse. You should never post your personal e-mail address on UseNet anyway. Now you may be wondering, "But can ALL of these people replying be wrong?" Unfortunately the answer is YES!

Check out this net-abuse/troll-FAQ at http://www.faqs.org/faqs/net-abuse-faq/troll-faq/ by Gandalf.

The answers to the questions in this FAQ come from the experience of people who have had some years of success in ABWI and in other binary groups, and present the methods and tools they have found to work best — in the majority of instances and over the long haul. In many cases there are also advanced techniques and less well-known tools to do the same things, but since this FAQ is intended to help you use the group effectively in as short a time as possible, those have either been skipped-over, or are linked-to with <more_info> links which you will find throughout this FAQ and the tutorials. Note that many very experienced people use only the techniques and tools explained here. It is absolutely possible to get the most out of the binary groups without any "marginal" tools, or obscure techniques.

The tutorial sections are intended to get you up-and-running as quickly and painlessly as possible. If you find any answer or section obscure or hard to understand, or if you have any question not answered here, please post your comments/questions either on UseNet in alt.binaries.warez.ibm-pc.d where they will be addressed, or via the "Comments" page, or by email to warezfaq@warezfaq.com, so the FAQ can be updated to fix that lack.

If this is your first exposure to the world of UseNet and Warez, and if you're entirely new to all this, don't feel alone, we were all "newbies" at one time or another. But before you jump over to the detailed Q&A or to the tutorials and dig into the meat of things, we suggest that you take a few minutes to continue reading these hints as assembled from the experiences of some folks who have been here for quite a while. It only takes a few moments and provides a quick overview of what goes on and what you might expect to see. Because this sort of group is bit more complicated than most other UseNet newsgroups, there are a few things you should be made aware of up front. Consider this portion as your basic guide the Warez groups, and any UseNet binary group in general.

Lurk: Watch in the background for a while, getting an overview of the lay of the land and a feeling for the general climate, and for who is who.

Learn - Browse through this FAQ to pick up the pointers you'll need to get the most out of things. Success in the binary newsgroups takes a certain amount of persistence and patience on your part. as Warez are NOT available on demand like some sort of Internet jukebox. Sometimes it's just a matter of timing or "catch as catch can".

Suggestion: Get a well-connected news server. This will benefit you because you'll be able to get many more complete postings. Take a moment and ask yourself how good your present news server is: If after downloading the message headers you're missing 10% or more of the parts of the multi-part messages, that's not good. Local ISPs have notoriously poor news servers, as it's not their main business. If things look kind of choppy, then you have two upgrade paths: (1) Get a new ISP with a well-connected news server (and don't be afraid to ask who provides their news service.) (2) Get an additional stand-alone subscription to a premium news server (where news is their main business) as a primary server, or as an adjunct to your present news server. Either changing your ISP, or spending a little extra to ensure article completion and retention (how long those articles stay on a server before disappearing,) will be well worth it in the long run.

<Click Here> for a list of some well regarded News Services.


 

Additions and changes:

As noted above, to propose any additions or changes to the FAQ, if you don't wish to post to UseNet, you may simply use either the Comments form, or send an email to the maintainers.

The Web-based WarezFAQ is always updating and expanding in order to better serve the needs of the binary-UseNet community. We hope you enjoy the site, and find what you are looking-for.