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AT&T Dropping Usenet Netnews; Low-Cost Alternatives?
franknagy writes "This announcement message has appeared in all the news groups on
the AT&T/SBC News Server: 'Please note that on or around July 15, 2009, AT&T will no longer be
offering access to the Usenet netnews service. If you wish to continue
reading Usenet newsgroups, access is available through third-party
vendors.' So what free or low-cost alternatives are available for Netnews and
the NNTP services for clients?"
Unless you are using binaries groups for music or pr0n, is Usenet even worth accessing anymore? I remained dedicated to the network long after most nerds departed because there was still a fairly decent amount of educated discourse on sci.lang and rec.music.classical, but even those groups are no innundated by spambots and most of the most worthwhile conversation partners have moved while only the crotchety remain.
Low-cost is a subjective term, and it really depends on how much you use it, but Giganews is rock solid. Super fast (I can get 20Mb sustained -- that's my connection max) and over a year retention on binaries.
Now that they're cutting a portion of the service out - do you get a cut on the monthly rate as well?
If you actually want to READ and POST text news, then I don't know why anyone would use an NNTP client nowadays. Google Groups is a far superior gateway.
If you are interested in binaries, then I would point you to Astraweb. They have great price plans.
I've never found a free one that was worth a damn, but there are several pay alternatives that are quite good. I'm currently with easynews.com.
If you don't need the binary groups, I'd bet the chances of finding a usable free one will be much higher, though.
I was always wondering why this protocol and all related software have not disappeared yet.
Because of alt.binaries.*
I use Astraweb as its currently the best unlimited monthly payment going
http://www.news.astraweb.com/specials/kleverig-11.html
$11/mo
SSL
Unlimited downloads
I've never had a problem capping my connection's bandwidth or with the service.
I use the aptly named newshosting, and have been quite impressed.
Cheaper then giganews, and has excellent retention and completion. Speed is only limited by my connection, and SSL and compression are available for even more speed.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
I use EasyNews to get my pr0...um...er...oh...make that 'I heard EasyNews is good'.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
They're especially cheap(I pay $11 US per month for unlimited 20 connections) and they're upgrading their retention to 360 days, right now it's at 295. I don't work for Astraweb, I'm just a very satisfied customer. The only downfall, if you consider this a downfall, is to get the $11 a month deal you have to pay through PayPal's subscription service, which isn't all that bad. Here's the link: http://www.news.astraweb.com/specials/kleverig-11.html Click the "Now Accepting PayPal" button.
It really depends on what you need it for, the best place to go is here: http://www.newsgroupreviews.com/usenet-providers.html
Out of the list I liked binverse.com and usenetserver.com, generally if you go thru the links provided by newsgroupreviews you'll get discounts that may or may not be "obvious" from just going directly to the sites in question.
Usenet was my first encounter with electronic forum - questions asked and answered, flame wars, trolls, kooks, some grass-roots projects, etc.
I remember the flame war about people's sig. Some dudes had this gigantic ASCII art sig files, and people were complaining about one-line posts with 20-line sigs, how the bandwidth were wasted, etc.
A trick to have one's question answered rather than ignored: Post the question, and from a second account, post a completely bogus answer with extra dose of condescension. People are so eager to pounce on the bogus answer with full-on indignation.
Oh well. Move on.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Well, it is better if you want to get caught easier...
No one is really actively tracing downloads from USENET, not like P2P solutions.
For the original poster, go google "open usenet servers", you'll find a couple of sites that index open usenet servers, and gives stats on them.
I know...I know...first rule of USENET is not to talk about USENET.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Another vote for GigaNews.
I only read about 30-40 groups, ever, and they are all text-only discussions. So their $2.99 a month Jade service is a no-brainer. I don't come close to even half a gig a month with those groups, and don't need thread retention more than 30 days either.
Cheap. Works.
My only gripe is that it's not as good as some of the pricier options that you directly link to. If all you want is basic text-only threading and zero fancy features, it'll take some getting used to the slower speeds and web interfaces. But I also am cheap and don't want to spend $20 a month... For about $40 a year, GigaNews works fine.
I can max my connection speed either way. In theory it's faster with a local mirror, and certainly costs the ISP less upstream bandwidth, but in practice it doesn't matter for many people. And ISP NNTP servers tend to suck anyway, so you might actually do better on "the wild Internet".
I subscribed to a variety of Usenet groups. I used that nice Freeagent software for year. Still do on my Museum PC (Packard Bell running Windows 95 with a tape drive and 128 MB of RAM).
I have a spam filter on my gateway so spam messages vanish.
I haven't gotten a new post in 3 years...
Usenet isn't dying. It's dead with nothing but ghosts left...
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Newsguy.com is an excellent service. Compared to many other USENET services, Newsguy actually has very little spam because of this really clever program they developed called SpamHippo. I also like them because you can buy bandwidth on demand if you want it and the bandwidth balance rolls over each month. The online readers are very focused on the USENET usage experience, with automatic binary downloaders for those binaries with hundreds of parts (and you download the binary version, not the encoded 7-bit version). Of course port 119 is there, too.
Kriston
OK.. Now that USENET is dead.. is it safe to let the secret out?
USENET WAS GREAT.
Astraweb offer a "pay as you download" service where you buy say 120GB of downloads and can use it when you need it, rather than paying monthly.
It's ideal as a backup server if your ISP's ones suck, because you can things that are posted regularly like TV episodes from your ISP with 7 days retention, and fills/older stuff from Astraweb.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I'd just like to say it's terrible when ISPs drop Usenet. Usenet is part of the Internet culture.
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
When my isp dropped usenet, I switched to readnews.com. It was something like $7 or $7.50 a month. I created an account, set up automatic billing, switched my news reader to the readnews nntp server, and forgot about it. It's a lot faster than my old ISP's news server ever was, especially when doing mass newsgroup updates, actually making use of the 20 Mbit pipe. They don't appear to do any newsgroup filtering, if you're concerned about that sort of thing.
Of course, I have no connection to readnews.com except as a customer. My first job on a Unix box back in 1982 was as the local usenet administrator, (ah, the days of "B" news and 1200 baud modems...) have always gotten Usenet for free, so it grates to have to pay for it, but I have to admit, the service works flawlessly.
Someone will inevitably point out that you can access news on groups.google.com. That service is excellent for searching for articles, but it fails when you're trying to browse a lot of articles. The interface is just too slow. If you're using usenet as a resource, google groups is fine. If you're actually trying to actively participate in any really effective fashion, you'll need a local news reader and an nntp service.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
They support anonymous SSL connections. It's not fullproof, but it's a fairly secure transfer protocol. Certainly safer than bittorrent. I've been a Usenetserver.com customer for years. Can't complain about them at all.
If you're one of those rare souls interested in discussion, sign up at individual.net. It's ten Euro a year (twelve US dollars or so), decent spam filtering. No binaries groups, but some of us view this as a bonus, rather than a shortcoming.
Astraweb sells 25 Gigabytes for $10. $25 buys 180 Gigabytes. I have had zero issues with them since last August, using the cheaper plan.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
There are still conversations on Usenet.
There is still pr0n.
There is still a boatload of warez.
There is still a ton of spam.
There are still many, many groups and messages.
There are still plenty of Usenet access providers and willing customers.
There is still plenty of software to access Usenet.
ISPs are still reducing services while raising prices.
So what's new and why is Usenet apparently dead?
mmmm...forbidden donut
For binary downloads, it's as simple as 1-2-3:
:) All open source and public domain downloads, of course. ;)
.nzb file containing your chosen files. I believe the site is hosted in the Ukraine, and their FAQ says they don't keep user activity logs, but who knows really.
;) I think I used bittorrent twice in the past year when I couldn't find it on Usenet. Usenet FTW.
1) Giganews.com. Period, end of conversation. Rock solid, almost a year of retention even on binaries, max out your internet connection 24/7 for $24.95/month, or $29.95 with SSL encryption. NEVER had a single problem with Giganews, and I've used them for 5 years. Looking at my download stats, I'm at around 17 TB currently.
2) newzleech.com. Search at www.newzleech.com, choose your files, and download a
3) NewsBin Pro. Have the NewsBin Pro program auto-load the nzb file, auto-download all the files, auto-download par files to repair any damaged files, and automatically unrar the files. NewsBin Pro is only $35, with free lifetime upgrades, is updated very frequently, and the license allows installation on up to 3 computers simultaneously if I remember correctly. I'm not affiliated with them, but I'm a HUGE fan. Available in 32 and 64 bit native versions for Windows, and I've heard it runs fine in Wine but have never tried it myself.
What's this bittorrent thing?
I've been using Usenet since about 1993 on a 14.4 modem. Wasn't ever too much into the discussion groups so can't comment much on that. I do know the newsgroups are crammed full of spam and viruses these days, hence using newzleech.com to search for what you want instead of loading up the group and searching through it. Giganews and NewsBin Pro both support using port 80 for news, helping you to slip under your ISP's radar.
http://www.sixxs.net/misc/coolstuff/#newsservers
Public:
news.ipv6.eweka.nl
newszilla6.xs4all.nl
Requires signup:
reader.ipv6.xsnews.nl
-molo
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
Because the interface is bloody awful? true, it's improved recently, but catching up with dejaNews from ten years ago isn't really a great achievment.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I prefer hellanzb.
It is written in python. All you do it put an nzb in the directory that it is watching, wait a few hours, and you have all your data, par'ed, decoded, patched together, and unrared, sitting in the output folder.
If you have a network storage server, you can conveniently share the queue directory with samba or NFS, and centralize all your downloading.
I fear the Y2038 bug
Nobody knew about usenet until he opened his big fat trap. I mean, what's the first rule...?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Because Google Groups is a web interface, and hence a painfully slow and miserable experience unless you have never become spoiled by good dedicated newsreaders.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
Interesting. I wasn't aware SSL can block a subpoena against their billing records.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
You said it for me. :) The difference between it working without crashing, nice and threaded, instantly, and web interfaces is enormous. I can get done in 5 minutes what it takes nearly 30 through Google. I hate wasting time and dealing with bugs.
It also is nice because what I've read and not read isn't in some cookie - the program is a dedicated reader that keeps it all straight. If I do want a binary, which we all do from time to time, it just does it all automatically.
You will have to likely upgrade to the top level service or business level service with your ISP if you download. You can saturate your bandwidth very quickly and they tend to get upset at that.
note - business accounts are never filtered or restricted by providers. Highly recommended as a result if you can afford the extra cost per month.
Although there has been mumbles about the RIAA and the likes targeting USENET over the years, they tend to just ignore it. Several reasons:
1. As simple as it is to use, there's usually still a process involved in finding and getting stuff. It might require 3 clicks instead of one, and that can frustrate some people.
2. You have to be patient to find stuff. The good news is, if you can see it there, it's very likely there, and it's very likely legitimate, and if it's not, there will be a dozen reply posts screaming about it being fake or corrupted. The bad news, of course, is that if it's not there.... you'll have to wait. You can put in a request of course, but if you're looking for something ancient and obscure, it might take a while before it shows up.
3. It's harder to catch infringers. With a torrent, or any other P2P application, all the RIAA has to do is set up a fake client, and start recording every peer that connects to a specific known pirated copy of something. Since, by default, everyone downloading something via BT is also uploading it, they can claim both downloading and distribution for every connection, even if nobody finishes downloading the file. With USENET, only ONE person will upload something, and from that point on it is hosted on public news servers. The only way to obtain a list of those who downloaded the files would be to get the owner of the newsserver to fork over transfer logs... if they even keep them in any useful format. Most of the major servers are owned by large corporate ISPs... who can afford expensive lawyers, and if the ISP in question could hide behind the common carrier defense, it wouldn't be worth the expense to go after them.
4. And the most important reason... hardly anyone is using it. At least, compared to the number of people that torrent, and emule, and kazaa. There are much bigger fish to fry, so why make a big deal about it, ultimately providing free advertising to yet another source of pirated material to a public that knows virtually nothing about it?
So yeah, for the moment, USENET is safe. When all the AOL'ers come back screaming "ME TOO!" again, I'll start to worry.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
I remember when the "Imminent death of the net predicted!" thread started back in the mid-80s. The threats were increased traffic, college students, the great renaming, fidonet, AOL and spam. Somehow it's still there if you want it. And it'll still be there tomorrow. I don't even have a newsreader installed at this point.
Support SETI@home
Ditto. They even support SSL (see here). For the few odd text groups I use, this free low-volume service is nice enough.
Method of processing duck feet