Newsgroups?

Zamtuk · Post by **Zamtuk** » May 21, 2003, 3:05 pm

I'm tired of using shitty Kazaa. What is the best newsgroup place I can get?

Tks in advance.

Post by **Xouqoa** » May 21, 2003, 3:09 pm

Your ISP most likely carrys newsgroups already. There are a few subscription services you can use too, but I've never tried any.

If you need a good program to browse them, I recommend Agent (or Free Agent) by Forte.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » May 21, 2003, 3:10 pm

Who is your Net provider? Typically the fastest will be your own ISP's newgroups.

Cox Cable is excellent. Almost every newsgroup and fast.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » May 21, 2003, 3:12 pm

Xouqoa wrote: If you need a good program to browse them, I recommend Agent (or Free Agent) by Forte.

Since he mentioned Kazaa, I'm assuming he's after perv, movies, games, etc. get BNR2. There's nothing better : )

Zamtuk · Post by **Zamtuk** » May 21, 2003, 3:16 pm

I just got Verizon DSL (cable is insanely overpriced here) and their newsgroups suck teh ass.

Neost · Post by **Neost** » May 21, 2003, 3:21 pm

Personally I use supernews. Cost me a bit a month but it allows 4 simultaneous connections, rarely lose posts, and a vast selection of groups.

25 bucks a month for 12 gig of downloads i believe. They have lower prices for lower limits, but 12 gig is about right for me. I believe there have been 2 times in the last year or so that they've upped the download limit for the level I'm purchasing.

Etasi · Post by **Etasi** » May 21, 2003, 5:36 pm

Well it depends who your ISP is, but a lot of the newsgroup services from ISPs suck ass, because they have horrible retention rates. The ISP I'm on only retains posts for 24 hours, meaning you're basically never going to find any complete files.

Easynews is the best in terms of retention (all binaries are kept for 30 days, and all non binaries are kept for 365 days), download speed (we can get around 300k a second almost any time of the day), and they have a great web interface which makes it a lot easier to find the stuff you're looking for, especially if you're not used to newsgroup programs. Easynews is pretty cheap for what you get, at $8.95 a month, but the one bad thing is that only gives you a 6 gig download limit (though you can refresh it anytime you want by simply paying another $8.95 once you're done with your 6 gigs, you don't have to wait until 4 weeks are up). If you're not planning on downloading tons and tons of stuff and you're willing to pay, I'd really recommend Easynews. It's almost ridiculous the amount of stuff you can find on a good newgroup service.

Usenetserver.com is the other one we use ($14.95 for unlimited downloads on a highspeed connection, cheaper for unlimited downloads over dialup). It's not nearly as good as easynews in terms of download speed, but it has pretty good retention, and it's still a lot better for finding harder to find stuff than Kazaa.

I don't think there are any good free newgroups services (at least not any that include binary groups, which are the ones with all the movies, tv shows, and music), simply due to the amount of bandwidth it takes to run one of those services. But, if you download a lot of stuff and have a hard time finding a lot of the stuff you want on Kazaa, I'd really recommend subscribing to a newgroup service.

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » May 21, 2003, 10:13 pm

I use Supernews as well. For the most part I'm happy with them. They seem to have complete posts. However their retention rate is a little pathetic at times with some expiring in less than 2 days. So you have to keep on top of groups you're interested in.