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Besides XPAT, is there anyone working on a common protocol so that different readers can access, say, UE's search index (with pay of course). I know there isn't one that exists today but seeing that you have contributed to newzbin before, maybe there is one in the talks? just curious.

no, it seems everyone implements its own protocol.
it also depends on the underlying server software and available hardware.

if to create a standard protocol i think it would be better to base it on boolean wildmats (wildmats are already used in XPAT) since other existing search services can be easily reduced to them, and regex would be too heavy on processor.

i talked about such a protocol with newzbin but it didn't go further so far maybe because i'm busy with other things (they have the idea though) and they are not especially supportive of this particular client - it seems their users prefer simple nzb downloaders skipping the header stage alltogether as everything goes down the road towards extreme simplicity of a binary repository.