Just to prove it, I have uploaded a small update to NZB Completion Checker. It fixes a few minor bugs, nothing big!

Here goes:

1. Online checker has been extended to 30 days of backlog
2. You can now opt-out of the community effort to track NZB completeness
3. Log-tab will now display a small icon, if there is something in the log
4. Double-clicking an NZB file will now start NZBcc, and begin the check immediately

I’m currently looking for new features for version 2.0. If you have any, please let me know

And as usual, the download link has been uploaded, so just click it to get the latest and greatest!

I looked around a bit, and found newshosting.com. They provide a pretty good deal compared to Giganews. You get more connections, free SSL, 1322 days of retention (as of today!) and a much better price! I thought I would give their Lite subscription a go: $10 a month, 50 GB download (with rollover!), and SSL encryption! Sounds like an awfully great deal to me

Anyways, I signed up and got the account information. I booted up NZB Completion Checker to perform a quick benchmark. I always wondered if NZBcc sometimes was a bit slow at checking NZB files with Giganews… and boy was I right!

Using the same amount of connections (20) and using SSL, Newshosting was two minutes quicker at testing an NZB file! Just to check up on my results, I ran the same test 6 hours later, to see if the speed would still hold up – and it did

Regarding download speeds, the are exactly the same!!

I can only recommend Newshosting.com. Press the banner, and give their 14 days/30 GB trial a go!

Here is a list of changes since the first alpha was released:

• It should now be possible to connect to a server without a username/password
• Online checker was extended to 15 days
• Changed the .NET framework from Client to Full framework (sorry, had to!)
• Fixed the installer to install the full version of the framework if missing
• You can now enable/disable a server. When it’s disabled it will not be used during server traversal. However, you cannot disable the primary server
• Fixed a severe bug using multiple servers, and the server traversal tool which could lead to an infinite checking loop
• Fixed the breakdown form (again!). The bars should now show the correct result for each completion bar. Also, the correct number of bytes is also displayed when using multiple servers.
• Fixed other minor bugs!

I would like to send a big thank you, to those people who took the time, to report bugs and suggestions! Please, keep the suggestions coming

I’ll would also like to thank the few persons who took the time and money, and gave a small donation – THANK YOU!

When you start the new alpha release (yes – the download link has been updated!), you will be greeted by a sponsor screen. This screen will only be shown once on every new update of the program. It gives you the opportunity to sign up to a news group vendor – who will in turn support NZBcc. The screen can also be found on the About screen.

Have fun with it

The next release will feature:

• A fixet installer – my bad – sorry
• Fixed the results being shown on the results screen. Multiserver/singleserver text was the same, though the bars showed different results (the bars were right!)
• On odd occations the settings was not saved

I’ve had a few request that I will also be looking into. With a bit of luck, they will make it into the next release

I expect to release the next version in about a week! Till then

• It should now be possible to connect to servers without a username/password
• Online checker was extended from 5 days to 15 days

The database now contains several hundreds completion checks of NZB files. However, more are needed for it to be of any use! So please download this alpha release, and upload your results!

As usual the download link has been updated.

• Now allows drag and drop to the files tab
• Server passwords are now masked on the settings page
• Added extended checks to servers load/save operations

The download link has been updated! Please update

Remember to support NZB Completion Checker – Sign up to Astraweb via this banner

This alpha release brings a completely new feature: Online check

NZB Completion Checker now supports an online community check. What this means is, that you can now check your NZB files against an online database. If other users have checked the exact same NZB file within a given time period (up to 5 days), it will display the completion of the files against all reported servers. If you checked your files against Giganews, and another person checks against Astra web, you will see two resuls in an grid, allowing you to select, where you should download the file from. The check only takes a few seconds – a lot quicker than checking the files from you own PC.

But whenever the online check fails (eg. no matches are found) – you will have to check the file on your own PC. It will then upload the results for others to use. In the alpha release – this is mandatory! If you don’t like it – don’t use the alpha!

Basically NZB Completion Checker does the following:
It calculates a salted hash from the file, and sends it to the server. The server will then compare the hash against others in the database. If any results are found, it will be send back to NZB Completion Checker.

All of this traffic is going through a HTTPS (SSL) connection. Nothing is logged on the server, except the hash, completion and usenet servers used.

Bear in mind, that this is an alpha release – I have only tested it myself, so the database is pretty empty. I hope that a lot of people will test the database with lots of NZB files … again, I can’t see what people are testing, it’s only a hash! If you don’t know what a hash is, read about it on Wikipedia.

Quick Instructions
Add some files to the “Files” tab, and then press the online button… that’s it! Please note, that the grid is updated after the check, and then you can unfold the line to see the completion ratios found. See below:

If there is nothing to unfold – the search came out negative.

This release also contains a few fixes. It’s now possible to sort/prioritize your servers in the settings form. The top most is used first, and so on. Use the arrow buttons to sort the servers. You still have to select at primary server though!

And lastly – a scrollbar was added to the Log tab.

As usual use the downlink on the right to download the alpha release – enjoy

New build number: 1.1.4445.38601

Remember to support NZB Completion Checker – Sign up to Astraweb via this banner

This release only brings minor bug-fixes – namely to the issue some were having after they entered their settings the first time and didn’t select the server as primary. This is now fixed. This bug will only occur once… unless you delete all you servers, and start over!

Remember to support NZB Completion Checker – Sign up to Astraweb via this banner

A new first-run wizard was also added. This should help new users with less experience in how to setup their first connection. Users who already have configured their servers, should not see the wizard!

There still is an outstanding issue with the breakdown report. Some bytes seem to be miscalculated. This is going to be fixed soon! Now I’m working on the closed alpha release. I still have a few days left before release – so be patient

The download link has been updated! Enjoy

If you would like to be part of it, post a comment to this post, and I’ll email you the download link when the alpha is ready… hopefully sometime next week! I’m looking for something like 10-20 people willing to test out a few things, and give me some feedback on it

You are also free to contact me using the “bug report” form in the current release of NZBcc. (on the About form!)