What newsgroups servers do you connect to?

There are many discussion threads on this topic.

If you're lucky enough to have a ISP that (still) offers good usenet service and you're happy with it, then there's probably no need to look any further.
 
I use astraweb for mine, they have a pay as you go plan which gets you 180GB for US$25, the 180GB doesn't expire and you get 50 connections and unlimited speeds. I primarily use torrents but astraweb is great to supplement torrenting when you need to get something fast or something which isn't available on torrents.
 
nyknicks said:
I did a search on here before I posted but I didnt see any.
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Well, as virtually all (and I mean ALL) isp's in the U.S. have long ago killed their usenet operations, or, for those who contracted out xxx bytes to Giganews or whoever, is....

Zilch now. Those threads are pretty long in the tooth. Again, most isp's are intent on eliminating anything that might actually get those paying users to USE some of the bandwidth they buy (oh horrors! :w00t:), and now the big fight (going on in the regulatory agencies like the FCC), is can they shape, delay, skew, restrict, or otherwise mangle their 'users' (the idea that those folks are 'paying customers' long ago having bitten the dust) connections is in high form right now.

In other words, they want your money without actually giving you any value in return. This is known as 'business'. As in... 'giving you the...'
 
Sadly, most non-European ISPs never had decent binary usenet, and I agree that over the last 2 years all but a few US ISPs canceled ISP-provided usenet access completely.

However, I can name one major American ISP that still has outstanding usenet service: Charter - which (in my experience) offers unlimited & unthrottled access to Highwinds' server. Other than its one-week header retention and lack of SSL (& no access to Highwinds' European server), Charter's free usenet service is essentially no different from a typical pay-provider like Newshosting costing $15/mo. Hopefully Charter's bankruptcy won't change things.


nyknicks said:
I did a search on here before I posted but I didnt see any.
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Just browse through the topics in the newsgroup forum; its hard to miss. Debating usenet providers is one of the main things we do here. (I myself am a fan of block accounts (Astraweb, Blocknews, etc) because I'm not a heavy downloader and the purchased bytes never expire)

In case you somehow can't find any, here's one of many, many discussions:

http://filesharingtalk.com/vb3/f-ne...t-provider-do-you-use-and-happy-you-it-333773Which Usenet provider do you use, and how happy are you with it?

I'm curious, what is your ISP and what is their usenet service like?
 
There are some good ISP ones, like in Australia, the ISP, Internode offers both Giganews and Astraweb for free to their client. Too bad the internet is capped/shaped/raped.

I myself use Astraweb. It's been reliable for me and very inexpensive.
 
All or virtually all, which one is it?


zot said:
However, I can name one major American ISP that still has outstanding usenet service: Charter - which (in my experience) offers unlimited & unthrottled access to Highwinds' server. Other than its one-week header retention and lack of SSL (& no access to Highwinds' European server), Charter's free usenet service is essentially no different from a typical pay-provider like Newshosting costing $15/mo. Hopefully Charter's bankruptcy won't change things.
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Cox also has Highwinds as their usenet provider.
 
How can you tell how "good" the ISP is? Mine is Suddenlink. It is a 8Mb connection and has a 30 day retention, fine for new releases I suppose. What else must I consider in deciding how "good" it is, compared to pay servers?
 
Retention, price andcompletion rates....it all depends on what you like, I'm not a big download at all, but the stuff I like is very rare TV stuff i can't even rent or buy, I find myself grabbng stuff at 300 days all the time, 30 day retention (being free is good) really limits your downloading...take a look around Astraweb with it's prices and retention is hard to beat, others will dis agree, but there are more out there, blocknews, sueprnews, etc.
 
I'm scared to say now, for fear they read this post :P

cola said:
All or virtually all, which one is it?
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Virtually all, because my ISP still has newsgroup access :cool:

chissprahug said:
I think you should search google. It will instruct you the way to build the perfect circuit.;)
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I've searched Google before but it didn't help much. Funny thing though is about a year ago I was able to use Cox's newsgroup access for free even though they werent my ISP. I found a list of ISPs that supported newsgroups and the connection info and tried them all. Thats as good as a list as I had and now they only work if they are your ISP. If you can tell me what "terms" to search for that might help. Google can find a lot of stuff, but sometimes you have to feed it the proper stuff to find what you need for more obscure topics.
 
Hmm, I just tried an experiment. I started an nzb 100 days old (on the same suddenlink that says it has 30 day retention)... It's downloading fine. How am I to understand this? Is this normal? Or is something else going on here?
 
Well they must have a better retention then there advertising, is this your ISP's? If so, you contact them and ask them how big of retention they have. And are you sure it's 100 days old?
 
Well, I called the ISP. The rep kept repeating that "If it says 30 days, then it is 30 days..." (that's what's on their site info). BUT, so far, it's downloading whatever I throw at it! I've gotten stuff in the 200 day range as well. Perhaps they are outsourcing, but have just not loudspeakered it out to us clients? This is all very odd to me, but I'm not complaining :)
 
My ISP is Cox and they have one that only has 4 connections and there all 512 Kbp cap and I believe 30 day retention so I use Supernews (I might try Astraweb, but Supernews beats it by 1 dollar ^_^)
 
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