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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?
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 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.
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.
What?? How is the Google groups UI even remotely better at threading, marking, filtering and generally managing long conversations? Compared to even something like Free Agent it's utterly shit!
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
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.
What he meant was:
Kibo can grep all of Usenet for his name much faster using Google.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
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
Google is not USENET. Google is a privately owned company. USENET belongs to no-one and to all. Do you see the difference? NNTP was very well thought out. It's distributed.
I'm quite aware that there's a generation out there that thinks Google can uncover any info you want (try something from 3 years ago and see how well you fare) and that think that PHP forums are the *best* way to store info. However, a simple examination will reveal how unfounded these opinions are. Google will own your info. PHP forums come and go. That's not reliable information.
OTOH, I would like USENET posting to allow for mark-up text, such as LaTeX or MathML. That would be very useful.
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.
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.