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Newgroups: I've been out of the loop, and have questions

B

Bacinator

Senior member
Anyone still use them for file-sharing?

I know people do, but I don't know if those people frequent Anandtech Forums, cuz they have newsgroups. =P

I have Comcast Broadband, and those @$$maggots gave News server rights to a 3rd party company, so subscribers only get 1gb per month if they subscribe with the 3rd party. Just so they don't have to maintain another server.

Are there any 'free' news-servers out there. All it is, is a pipe to other servers on UseNet, no?

I ask because with the 3rd party service, I can access the same groups I could access when I was an active user in San Diego, with Cox Communication's News Server.

So if it's just as simple as standing up a server, to replicate UseNet, I would think someone would be wise enough to stand up a freebie.

Any help/insight/tips would be appreciated.
 
No free lunch.

Yes, people still use newsgroups. Yes, most everything that comes out is on newsgroups shortly thereafter.

Plenty of decent usenet servers for around $20/month.
 
I don't like picking up music and movies from newsgroups.

Well, kinda. My 'niche' is music videos. I've grabbed a song or movie here or there. But Music Videos and TV shows are what make me happy.
 
I mainly download concerts from bands that approve. Some VCDs here and there, but mainly 2 or 3 CDs of music each day.
 
Yes, it's out there.... and, the one reason Verizon DSL is better than Comcast cable here in Richmond is that Verizon DSL have their own unlimited free usenet server (but not as fast as the 3rd party Comcast's giganews).

So, do you want blazing fast usenet with 1 gig/month limit? or somewhat slow unlimited usenet?

I believe you can use 1gig easy in one day.

Try searching ATOT for usenet servers. I believe there were some posts about it in the past.

I use it for backups of my Christian music collection. Yes, there's a group called alt.binaries.mp3.christian
 
Comcrap 1GB/month does suck donkey balls. I subscribe to Giganews for 11.00 a month, you get 10.5GB. Still not enough but it's not too bad. If I could get Verizon DSL I would.
 
Yeah. When I got it to work the first time, I didn't monitor my downloads, and prolly downloaded like 1.7g in 3 or so hours. (guesstimating) Then I got a note from giganews saying 'You are 700megs over limit. This amount will be deducted from next month's download allowance'. Yay.... not.

So I didn't use it for like 8-9 months, and not when I open the original program (newsbin), it can see the files, but doesn't want to download. So I'm curious if there is something better out there, so I don't have to go through troubleshooting this crappy service.
 
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
files don't last forever😛 days max
Click to expand...

That all depends on the news service and the retention times they set. Easynews is very good about keeping the retention time high for most of the popular binary groups. By high I mean on the order of 2 weeks to a month in some cases.
 
I was shocked to see how easy it is to download the most popular pc games, psx 2, xbox images from the USENET. No wonder you guys use up so much bandwidth. I'm sure Matrix Revolution will be out the same day.

granted the files are there for a few days, but it'll reappear again and again due to requests.
 
Check out the list here, some of these are out of date but it'll give you a good idea what's out there. I've been subscribed to Easynews for over a year and it's a great service, but somewhat limited (only 6GB for $10). Last week I picked up an account with Astraweb and it's not bad, retention is OK, speed is decent, and they offer cheap flat-rate plans (I paid $10 for 25GB).

link
 
Newsfeeds is about $15 -$20/month. You get 12 servers and roughly 750megs per server. While it's not unlimited, I've grabbed well over 2 gigs in a day. News Pro will handle the multiple servers for you with ease. Great little program. Under a meg and is the best newsgroup reader I've ever used.
 
awesome newsgroups is one reason I went with DSLExtreme. They cap the connection speed at 512kbps but its an outsourced connection to Supernews with a 2 week binary retention, 99% completion, and no download cap 🙂
 
Originally posted by: Shiva112
awesome newsgroups is one reason I went with DSLExtreme. They cap the connection speed at 512kbps but its an outsourced connection to Supernews with a 2 week binary retention, 99% completion, and no download cap 🙂
Click to expand...

We have a company here, Knology, that is hooked to SuperNews. They are still engineering the lines for my neighborhood, though. The engineers I spoke with said 6 months to a year before it's in place. They are building a complete fibre optic network from the ground up. I bet speeds on there rock.
 
Originally posted by: LedZeppelin
SSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHH

All this useless newsgroup babble, and it'll soon go the way of napster and kazza.
Click to expand...

I doubt that. Newsgroups have been around for much longer than either of those programs.
 
Originally posted by: royaldank
Originally posted by: LedZeppelin
SSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHH

All this useless newsgroup babble, and it'll soon go the way of napster and kazza.
Click to expand...

I doubt that. Newsgroups have been around for much longer than either of those programs.
Click to expand...

Yep, and that's because the focus is on and has been on P2P file sharing programs, and the NG's have floated under the radar, but unheralded attention and that may all soon change.
 
I've been using Newsfeeds for a year now. Love it. I get about 380K off there any time of the day. Their servers also support searching so you don't have to download all the headers...let the server search.

News Pro is a great program. They have links and setup instructions to get you going.

Newsfeeds is roughly $20/month with daily limits of 750meg/server with 12-15 serves.
 
Originally posted by: LedZeppelin
Originally posted by: royaldank
Originally posted by: LedZeppelin
SSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHH

All this useless newsgroup babble, and it'll soon go the way of napster and kazza.
Click to expand...

I doubt that. Newsgroups have been around for much longer than either of those programs.
Click to expand...

Yep, and that's because the focus is on and has been on P2P file sharing programs, and the NG's have floated under the radar, but unheralded attention and that may all soon change.
Click to expand...

'xactly... ^ and IRC that's where stuff hits first, but kiddies don't know how to use it right
 
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