newsbin.com

I cannot download any .rar files. I get the download failure message "SPAM:RAR - Contains EXE Payload". No matter which .rar file I choose the results are the same, they all look like SPAM to NewsBin. However, I can always download .pdf files. I have the Spam Filter set at Casual. Any help would be greatly appreciated

It's pretty much what it says, all EXE files on usenet are probably viral or trojans looking to infect your machine. I've seen rare cases where this isn't true but, normally it is.

If you really want these EXE files, you can select them and hit Ctrl-Y to bypass all filters including the spam filters. I'd seriously think twice about running any EXE I downloaded from Usenet. What you could do is try to download all the things that look like what you want and hopefully some of them aren't viral spam. Sometimes I'll queue up 5 different files for the same topic and hope that one of them isn't viral spam.

I let Newsbin filter out the spam. It's normally right.

Many thanks for your quick reply. I suspected as much but felt more comfortable asking the experts. Much appreciated!