The Usenet can be best described to users who have never come in contact with it as a global forum with hundreds of thousands of groups and the ability for everyone to post and reply. The messages that get posted and read are called articles or posts and they are posted to so called newsgroups which are further divided into binary and textual groups.
Binary groups allow users to post files with their posts while textual groups do not. The main difference between forums and the Usenet is the decentralized system of the Usenet. There is no administrator or central server in the Usenet, everything is handled by independent servers that exchange data with each other.
Usenet access is provided by so called Usenet providers. Back in the days a lot of Internet Service Providers offered Usenet access but today there are only a few that do. Most stopped offering Usenet access due to the costs involved to operate or lease the infrastructure.
Public Usenet servers exist but they tend to come and go and are not as reliable as they need to be to be a good alternative.
The only other choice are Usenet Service Providers like Giganews. Giganews is respected in the Usenet community for its quality service. They might not be the cheapest provider around but they make more than up for it by providing their users with the best quality possible.
Users who are evaluating Usenet providers need to consider several factors beyond the monthly charges that they have to pay for the access. The most important factors are:
- Traffic Limits: How many Gigabytes can be downloaded per month?
- Connection Limits: How many simultaneous connections are allowed?
- Encryption: Does the Usenet Provider offer encryption?
- Data Retention: For how long are the Usenet articles stored on the servers?
- Speed Limits: What’s the average and maximum speed that users get?
- Completion: Are the files that are uploaded complete?
- Censorship: Are the newsgroups uncensored?
Giganews, as a top provider, is offering some of the best – if not the best – values.
- Traffic Limits: Up to unlimited traffic
- Connection Limits: Up to 50 simultaneous connections
- Encryption: 256 AES encryption offered
- Data Retention: 498 days of binary articles are stored by Giganews and almost 3000 days of textual articles
- Speed Limits: 50 Mbit+ (this is the limit of our test connection to the Internet, it may very well be even faster than that). Giganews operates servers in the United States, Asia and Europe to provide users with faster access times to the servers.
- Completion: One of the best completion rates in the industry. Completion rate is greater than 99% (rest can be usually handled with so called parity files)
- Censorship: Giganews provides access to over 109,000 uncensored newsgroups.
What you need:
The requirements that are needed to access the Usenet are one of the main reasons that it has not reached mainstream yet:
- Usenet Access: Access to a Usenet server is needed obviously. We recommend Giganews but there are other providers out there as well.
- Usenet Client: Several mail and chat programs offer access to the textual groups but the binary groups require a client that is able to handle those. One of those clients is Newsbin Pro which we have reviewed in last Christmas’ Giveaway. It is a commercial software but there are free alternatives like Alt.Binz available as well
Usenet Preview:
If you do not know what you get then you’d probably do not want to pay for access to the Usenet. There are several options on how to get a preview. Option one is to make use of the free trial option that Giganews offers.
Another option is to use a Usenet search engine like Binsearch to search for files that are of interest.
Personal Experience:
I have been accessing the Usenet for more than ten years and was switching Usenet providers constantly back in the beginning because they did not offer what they advertised. That is, until I signed up for Giganews for the first time which I have been now for several years.
I never – and I really mean never – had connection, retention or speed problems other than the occasional ten minute period when your Internet Provider drops your Internet connection and you get a new IP.
The release of the Giganews Accelerator made my life a lot easier as it was now possible to download the compressed headers which bumped the speed to 4-10 times the value that uncompressed headers where delivered.
I know one thing and that is that I will stick with Giganews for as long as they continue to provide this excellent service.
Christmas Giveaway
We have a very special offer today. Giganews was nice enough to provide us with three free one-year accounts.
1 Diamond account
1 Silver account
1 Bronze account
Please leave a comment below to be included in the draw. Let us know about your Usenet experience.
Raju is giving away Disk Rescue 2009 licenses, make sure to check out his giveaway as well.
Enjoyed the article?: Then sign-up for our free newsletter or RSS feed to kick off your day with the latest technology news and tips, or share the article with your friends and contacts on Facebook or Twitter.Related Articles:
Giganews 1000-Days Retention GiveawayGiganews University
Giganews Usenet Trials
Giganews has now 100 days of retention
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I want to be included in the draw.
I have not yet used Usenet taht much but the littele I have it has been good.
I’d like to try out usenet to download only legal files. to this point, i have not tried newsgroups because i believe filesharing should be free.
The best Usenet provider bar none. They provide first-class service both in terms of article retention and system maintenance. I’d love to have one of their subscriptions again. Thanks
I’d love to try Usenet, I don’t understand what all the fuss is about :)
Nice Xmas giveaway! Please count me in! Thanks!
I have downloaded lot’s of TB from FTP servers and P2P, but I have never tried Usenet.
I have signed up to a free trial (I think I’ve got the link from this site) but I forgot the password to my mail, so I couldn’t check my mail and try the offer.
I have always wanted to try Usenet, so this could be my “big chance” :D
Merry Xmas! I hope I’m drawn ;)
atm I use my ISP newsgroup access.. I’d like to see how a paid service is better ;)
the big factor is retention(how long posts are kept) and amount of actual data….example– i had 2 isps-roadrunner and att…..both had newsgroups but roadrunner had 30 days retention-att had 7 day retention and only about 1 percent of the groups/posts that roadrunner had….i believe giganews offers 498 day retention and many many groups/posts–so that is what u r paying for
Have tried usenet once for a couple of months, and I can see why it is both not mainstream and awesome. I don’t know much about encryption / privacy issues, so if you guys say that giganews offers good encryption I would like to try that. please? :)
I am new to Usenet. So i would like to start with Giganews. Hope to win an account.
I have used usenet a lot in the past, usually when it was included with my ISP. I have been wanting to try Giganews, but for some reason I have not yet. I would love to get an account and see how it is.
I would like to be included in the draw! I was using usenet since the early nineties and rediscovered it a few years ago. Binaries ya know ;)
I’m on my providers usenet-servers (Tweaknews in the Netherlands). I have a pretty good retention on there (about 200 days), but I heard a lot of good things about Giganews.
I would love to win this giveaway!
I want participate in.
I am a huge news geek!!
Would love to try Usenet + it would make a nice Christmas present. :)
This is “the” giveaway I want. Yes please!!
Please include me in.
Wow, nice !
My isp is very limited on usenet side …
Closing groups every week, retention only a few days, many incompletes …
never used usenet :D
more of a torrents fun :))
Please include me in the draw. Haven’t used it though..
I usually get files from RS and MU but It would be nice to try Giganews.
I heard only good things about Usenet, but I never tried it till now. I would like one of the accounts you are giving away. Thanks!
I don’t know this service but I’m interesting to try.
Thank you and Merry Christmas :)
Usenet, yeah….
I have never experienced usenet experience but heard a lot about it. Thanks for this wonderful giveaway.
Giganews would be great, my isp has only limited groupage.
Yay, old enogh to remember the usenet.. ;-)
and since my current provider’s offer is somewhat limited, I’d love the opportunity of a Giganews account…
I have been using Giganews for the last 3 months now, and have great success with it! But I would gladly take a free one! :)
I’d like to try Usenet, never have had enough money to try it out yet. Also heard good things from friends who use usenet and giganews. So count me in! Thanks.
I have used usenet earlier in the late 90′s, and I would love to get back into it again…
always wondered about newgroups – an account would be fun!