usenet servers - recommendations?

[Binky]

My ISP's news server is, to put it in technical terms, no good.

Can anyone recommend one of the subsciption based servers, like Supernews and the like?

Thanks.

[FlorianLT]

I use the server of Berlin University (beings I am German myself... grin). You need to register but the service is free. I have never had any problems regarding connectivity from the US.

Their link is: http://news.fu-berlin.de/

Hope that helps!
Florian

[Binky]

Danke, Florian
Unfortunately some of their restrictions don't work for me.

[MinorMan]

I use Giganews (http://www.giganews.com/). A bit pricey, but great retention and speed.

John

[Binky]

I use Giganews. A bit pricey, but great retention and speed.
They're not pricey compared to Supernews (http://www.supernews.com/indi_price.html).

[Kevin]

I use NewsFeeds (http://www.newsfeeds.com/). Many of the commercial usenet providers out there are just resellers of NewsFeeds or SuperNews anyway. Supernews is great if you can afford them but newsfeeds seems to fit my needs. I have chewed up and spit out soooo many commercial usenet providers it isn't even funny %)

[sheila]

My husband tried out Newsfeeds about a year or so ago. So I tried it, too. As far as retention of the handful of text-based groups that I read, and propagation issues and so forth, it seemed pretty reasonable.

Here are the things I didn't like:

(1) They append an advertising footer to every article you post. I feel that that is appropriate for a free service, but not for one I'm paying for. There is ONE of their serveral servers to which you can post where they do not append this footer. (Their "spamkiller" server.) I can't remember right now why that was not an acceptable solution for me, but I didn't like this restriction.

(2) They advertise this "My Newsgroups" server, where you can request your "special" newsgroups that you want to subscribe to, and they will only put the specifically requestes groups of their subscribers on that server, resulting in longer retention and so forth (I think they also claim faster speed on that server?). Well, AFTER going through the trouble of hopping through all the necessary screens to add several groups (you can't just go a screen and input as many as you'd like. The screen allows you to input ONE, then submit, then to add another you have to repeat the whole process), I finally got an error message, telling me that I'd added my maximum of five permitted groups and so I couldn't add any more.

FIVE??!!?!?!

What Usenet junkie who actually goes to the trouble of paying for a separate Usenet service would read only five groups? Moreover, there is no way to find out that this limit exists until after you've already added five. They state nowhere on their site that there is a limit. And, I could see no way to remove the ones I'd already requested and replace them with others.

My husband was primarily interested in binary groups, and our ISP's newsserver has poor completion rate for binary groups. So, he tried out this Newsfeeds.com for a few months. In the end, he decided to stop paying the extra money. We just use GTE/Verizon's subpar newsserver(s) now.

OK, so maybe I'm easily annoyed? Dunno. Maybe these things won't bother you, and Newsfeeds will be fine for you.

[frankc]

Does anyone have any experience with http://www.newsguy.com? Their price is right.

I was getting access to my dialup ISP's Usenet, but they recently closed the door on that since I'm getting 'net access via microwave now, so they as an ISP offer no value now.

My wireless service provider does not offer Usenet and has no interest in it, so I'm off to find Usenet access. Google's groups aren't bad but it's nice to be able to have OE or some other newsreader managing read threads, etc. Deja used to offer some nice features as I remember but now it's been Borged by Google.

Frank
==or is it Borked?==

[Kevin]

Their limits seem kind of low. 500MB per day isn't really that much. According to NewsRover I have downloaded 1.5GB so far today (I still have 4.5 hours left) I have routinely hit 5-6GB in a single day when I was trying to download something large (like a CD image). It really depends on what you plan to do in usenet. If you only want text messages than the limits are fine. If you want lots of "stuff" then you may need more.

I have used SuperNews, GigaNews, Usenet-Access, NewsScene, MegaNet News, and usenetserver.com. All were dumped for various reasons. I am currently happy with newsfeeds.com but that may change if they alter policies.

Luckily a usenet provider is much easier to dump than an ISP. There are no new email addresses to advertise or anything like that. Just change a setting in your news reader and keep going :)

[sheila]

If you do not require binary groups (and read only text groups...which I suspect, since you mention Google as being somewhat acceptable), then check out this FREE news server in Germany. Info on this web page:
http://news.cis.dfn.de/

Requires registration, etc... but the feed is fast and complete. I'm very satisfied with them.

[Tibbits]

I used to use uncensored-news.com and they seemed to work okay.. I've gone back to my ISP service now as I'm completely broke.

[frankc]

sheila, registered at that site and tho it took nearly 2 days to get the login info, I must say I'm impressed! Two NGs that I'd swear I saw in the list are MIA, tho (chi.*)...but their free service is VERY fast.

Thanks VERY much for the tip! I'm off to fire my old ISP.

[sheila]

...registered at that site and tho it took nearly 2 days to get the login info, I must say I'm impressed! Two NGs that I'd swear I saw in the list are MIA, tho (chi.*)...but their free service is VERY fast.
Cool. :)

They may be willing to add groups if you request them.