SABnzbd is a download manager for Usenet newsgroups.

Usenet is a discussion system where users can create new topics and reply to them. This system was created at the beginning of the 80s when the Internet did not exist as we know it today. Despite being a system so old, it is still being used, and one of the major uses is the upload of files so that other users can download them.

The process of downloading files on Usenet networks is complex because we have to browse through the different newsgroups to find what we are looking for and download all the parts of a file. This can take several minutes or even hours if we do not use additional tools.

Thanks to SABnzbd, the process of downloading files hosted on Usenet newsgroups will be more simple. To use this program, we all need to download the .nzb files of Usenet group news. To download and search for .nzb files, many sites on the Internet are dedicated to indexing and offering this type of file. You can make an analogy between the .torrent files and the .nzb files. The .torrent files contain information about a download; to download the content, we have to use a BitTorrent client. In this case, the .nzb files contain information about a download and use SABnzbd to download the content of the .nzb file.

To access the program, we need to use a browser and go to the web address we have chosen in the setup; usually, it is http://localhost:8080/sabnzbd. The program creates a web server, so if we set up our router properly, we can access the program from any computer in the world, which means that we can add new .nzb files at any time and place.

The software is very simple; we only need to configure the Usenet server we want to use and add the .nzb files that we want to download. We can add .nzb files downloaded on our hard drive or enter the URL file.

Other programs can use the software to add new files to the download queue. To do that, this software provides an API key that we will be able to enter into other programs so that it can add new downloads automatically.

Downloads from Usenet servers tend to be very fast, so we can configure the program to limit the download speed, so we don't saturate Internet bandwidth. It is also usual that Usenet providers limit the number of gigabytes downloaded per month. We can configure the program, so it doesn't exceed the limit imposed by the access provider.

We can also schedule different actions to be executed at any time of the day. For example, we can schedule to limit download speed from 8 am to 8 pm or, at 10 in the morning, to pause all downloads and resume it at 17 in the afternoon.

We can create categories to classify and organize downloaded files; this way, when we add a new file, we can assign it to a category, and it will automatically be saved in the directory associated with the selected category.

In the main interface, we will see a list of files that are being downloaded and those that have already been downloaded. It also shows the speed of downloading files and the buttons to pause or delete the downloaded files.

The software is cross-platform so we can install and use it on Windows, Mac, and Linux. We can download and use the program free of charge.