Slashdot Mirror

The obit is premature. Usually when a service "dies" it would mean it's no longer available, but anyone can still buy usenet access here, here, here, here, here, here, here, or here.
And that is by no means a complete list. If anything, usenet may actually return to a more usable medium again, now that it won't be free for all the spammers and trolls anymore. Then again, it may well not -- it's not like all the illegal traders will just give up and go away, so I guess it depends on how much money the **IA, the BSA, and the morality police want to spend on "eradicating the problem".

Well that's that. Usenet is dead. I am glad that child predators won't have any other way to access the cesspool of child pornography that is Usenet.

usenet.com is commonly confused with Usenet. One is a for-profit company; the other is a global, decentralized, distributed Internet discussion system.

Granted, it's pretty clean, but Are you new to Usenet? contains this gem: "Usenet contains millions of mp3s, videos, software, movies, videos, games, and much more you can download for free! We also have all the text groups for those of you who like to engage in deep discussions."

Pretty blatant, if you ask me.

Where Can You Get Free Downloads These Days?
Well, we must admit that it is getting harder and harder to find anything free on the Internet these days. File sharing websites are getting shut down, spam is all over the net and free download options are getting thinner by the day. So what is the Internet user who loves to download stuff for free to do in this situation? There is one solution which has existed for a while but not everyone may be informed of just yet. This solution is called Usenet, also known as The Usenet Experience. It is an underground because it is not a website that anyone can randomly access by doing a search in Google, Yahoo, or AltaVista. It is somewhat hidden and restricted because not everyone has access to the free download areas, called newsgroup.
So How Do You Get to the Place with Free Downloads?
It is easier than you may think. The place which soon may be the only one that offers free downloads is available to everyone through a Usenet service provider company, such as Usenet.com. In order to start downloading all you want, you need to have Internet access (which you probably have already since you're reading this) and a Usenet account. Once you join Usenet.com, you can access the Usenet newsgroups and start downloading all you want without paying an additional cent. Tired of busy file sharing programs such as KaZaa? Then Usenet is the place for you. It's a place that has it all and where you can download it all. Usenet has a much wider selection than any of the other file sharing programs and it is available to you to use 24 x 7, no mater who's online or who isn't. The files are all hosted on the provider company's servers and it is available to all users to view and download.
What Exactly Can You Download in Usenet?
Anything and everything. Literally. There are movies, mp3s, cartoons, wallpapers, sounds, videos, pictures, warez, games, software and much more. The files (also known as "binaries" in Usenet) are organized by subject in the so called "newsgroups," which makes it really easy for everyone from the inexperienced user to the expert to find what they are looking for.

It goes farther than wink wink, nudge nudge if this page is any indication: http://www.usenet.com/articles/free_download.htm

I consider it just about any computer/computer information transfer that allows near-real time reading/posting/replying (as Usenet certainly did)

KaZaA Lite is the best to get MP3s, porn and popular software quickly.
eMule (eDonkey network) is the best to get movies, games and software reliably, as well as full albums, ebooks and porn.
What Gnutella is good for, I don't know.
Direct Connect ++ is best to get stuff if you have a very fast connection.
BitTorrent is best to get fresh movie, anime and other releases and some legit stuff like game demos.
FreeNet is not really usefull as of today.
IRC is good to get fresh movie and software releases quickly.
Usenet is good to get fresh stuff quickly if your ISP has a good newsserver or you are willing to subscribe to a paid one, but it's bad for hunting down specific stuff.

Depending on what you're doing on the Usenet, 6GB is nothing. Fansub enthusiasts in particular can pull down 6GB in a couple of days easily. Giganews is a joke. It's horribly overpriced and way too limiting. There are plenty of other usenet services that, while they may have daily limits, have no monthly limit and have lower prices. Giganews also has the slowest Usenet server I've ever seen. Even realatively cheezy offerings like Usenet.com beat them in pretty much every respect.

Of course this will all be moot if ComCast decides to implement ia download cap. I've been expecting this move for awhile now, as they remove competition they start rolling back on service and increasing their price. I can't say that I'm surprised. They have a little state granted monopoly in my area, why wouldn't they start acting like a monopoly? It's not like I can get DSL here since my nearest CO is 13km away, and there are no wireless providers in the area any more.

newsguy and usenet.com sell newsfeeds.