WebGuru’s Blog about Digital Life

What is Usenet, and why should you pay extra for a premium usenet / newsgroup server service?

1) Usenet started as a huge, distributed discussion forum and became a huge, distributed uncensored file trading network.
- Not only can you trade MP3’s, movies, and Warez binaries (not that we condone these practices) but you can also make requests that other usenet readers may fill.
- Compared to Kazza, eMule, and all the other file-trading networks, you have much better completion rates and ability to make requests.

2) Most ISP’s include a newsgroup server service for free, but they usually stink.
- The completion rate for binary files like mpg’s and movies at most ISP’s is really bad.
- ISPs like Comcast limit the amount you can download from their newsgroup servers.
- Some ISP’s like Rogers Communications have even stopped carrying newsgroups.
- Most ISP newsgroup servers retain binary messages for only 2 or 3 days, sometimes less, for alt.binaries.mp3.* news groups.
- Most ISPs don’t provide uncensored access to their usenet news group servers, preventing access to adult newsgroups, to warez newsgroups, and other questionable content.

The pages on this site try to explain usenet service in normal, everyday terms - primarily focused at normal Windows users. The super-geeks may scoff, but that’s not who we are targeting anyway. The tables below reflect the experience and opinions of the Anchordudes based on our memberships with each as well as discussions we participate in on some file-trading networks. We try to keep the “Best Usenet Providers” table updated at least monthly.

There are two lists: The “Best Usenet Providers” are those we highly recommend based on our 4 years of watching the industry. The second list is a complete listing of all the major providers and their resellers. The second list of backbone newsgroup servers is REALLY hard to maintain as it requires doing traceroutes and mappings, so we don’t maintain it as frequently. Almost all of these newsgroup companies provide uncensored access to usenet.

Between us Anchordudes, we do a lot of file transfers, and nothing is more aggravating than having part of a file missing (incompletes), or having it disappear from the server before we get it all downloaded, or the worst - a service that is up and down right when you want to do some transfers. Stick with the services in the “Best Usenet Providers” and you can’t go wrong. Choose from the bottom list and you are on your own.

The companies on our Best Usenet Service Providers list are our personal favorites, the ones we spend our own money on. Most importantly, they must have great reliability. They also must have completion over 90%, at least 14 days of retention, and have a competitive price. All things being equal, we prefer to buy directly from the backend provider if possible. Based on reliability, completion, retention, speed and price you can’t go wrong with one of the usenet providers in the “Best” section.

Best Usenet Service Providers (last updated April 18 2006)
Usenet Provider	Prices / Rates	Features	Notes (If viewing from Europe - check out the European Usenet service providers table too!)
Giganews Longest NNTP newsgroup retention Click on link above for special $5 off signup coupon page	Unlimited: $25 - mth 25 GB / mo:$13 - mth $0.52 / GB 2 GB / mo $8 - mth $4.00 / GB	Q- A C- Highest R- Highest S- Highest X-10 H, BKent, Bruce	Giganews has the longest retention, hands down. 70+ days and near perfect completion. If you missed a part and it’s fallen off your normal service, Giganews probably still has it. All newsgroups are uncensored. 9-13 weeks binary group retention depending on newsgroup. Giganews offers both metered ($13/mo) and an unlimited NNTP Usenet service ($25/mo). Unlimited is $10 more than Newshosting, but it’s reliable day in, day out and has super long retention. If you have the budget for it (still less than most subscription web sites) it’s worth every penny.   Giganews also offers a European based server for overseas users.
GUBABest pure web-thumbnail usenet service	Unlimited: $15 - mth	Q - A C- High R- High S- Highest X-4 (approx) B, W, HPeter	If you don’t want to worry about learning a newsreader program, combining RAR and PAR files, and all the nastiness of combining files, Guba is the way to go. Note of warning: GUBA has two user interfaces, one is pretty clean, and the other is quite adult. The default page for Guba could go to either one until you set a preference - not safe for visiting from work!GUBA’s specialty is an excellent web thumbnail interface for uncensored binary usenet newsgroups, especially movies and pictures. Just use your web browser to view thumbnails of pictures and movies, click, and download. A number of other services have similar interfaces, sometimes for a few bucks less, but GUBA is our favorite of them all.
EasynewsBest usenet service for metered accounts with search Best service for finding “old” binary parts	20 GB / mth: $10 - mth $0.50 / GB Gain extra gigs by donating CPU time to charity and participating in Easynews user polls	Q - A C- Highest R- High S- Highest X-unlim W, H, ABruce / Peter	We recommend Easynews as the perfect backup to your ISP’s server, or an Unlimited service like Newshosting. Now that they’ve increased their volume to 20GB a month, they are most definitely the best metered service! We keep our account active all the time, even if we don’t use all 20GB each month. Their long retention (25+ days) and high completion ratios come in SO handy when your primary provider is missing a part. All newsgroups are uncensored. You can use your PC newsreader program, OR what’s really cool is their ONLINE Global SEARCH TOOL (http://members.easynews.com/global). No waiting to load up headers on your PC, just go online, choose the group name, and search for the missing file. Then click a few checkboxes and download whatever you need. They even have a multi-select that will combine multiple files into a ZIP files so you can download it easier. Note - Easynews also gives you up to 4 additional Gigs if you take their monthly survey and donate CPU cycles to charity.
Newshosting Best value unlimited usenet service	Unlimited: $15 - mth Unlimited: $84 - 6 mth $14 / mo Unlimited: $155 - yr $13 / mo 10 GB / mth $10 - mth $1.00 / GB 25 GB / mth $20 - mth $0.80 / GB 50 GB / mth $30 - mth $0.60 / GB 60 GB / 6 m $50 - 6 m $0.83 / GB 150 GB / 6 m $100 - 6 m $0.66 / GB 300 GB / 6 m $150 - 6 m $0.50 / GB	Q - A C- Highest R- High S- Highest X-8 H, WPeter	Newshosting has always been a favorite of ours - even when they have a hiccup or two (and all the providers do) they report it on their status pages so members know that it is not their connection or ISP - we really respect that professionalism. Retention is not as nearly as long as Giganews - 20 - 25 days - but for $10 less per month on unlimited downloading, it’s good enough for most people.Newshosting offers unlimited incensored usenet accounts at $15/ mo as well as monthly limit (metered) accounts that are priced pretty well too, particularly over 50GB a month. The biggest difference is that metered accounts have slightly better retention AND on online web interface with thumbnail previews similar to Easynews.   Newshosting lets you choose which network backbone to use, which can improve speed depending on your ISP.
Newsguy.comCleanest (spam free) newsgroup databases	30 GB / mo $10 - mth $0.34 / GB 30 GB / mo $15 - mth $0.50 / GB 30 GB / mo $40 - 3 mth $0.44 / GB 30 GB / mo $70 - 6 mth $0.38 / GB 30 GB / mo $100 - yr $0.28 / GB	Q - A C- Highest R- Med S- Highest W, B, A X - 32	Newsguy is one of the oldest premium providers and has a unique “Spam Hippo” filter system the keeps the garbage out of the listings. Their premium $15/mo accounts also include free email accounts and some web hosting. They’ve recently added some a few new policies to let you go over your monthly limit: 1 or 2 bonus days a month are unlimited, you can roll-over capacity from prior months, surveys can give you extra bandwidth, and some loyalty bonuses too. Unfortunately, they still have the shortest retention of all our recommended providers: 10 - 17 days They also have a web interface like Newshosting (but not quite as easy as Guba’s) for when you only have a web browser to check messages.

Features:C: Completion Rate (Highest 95%+, High 90+, Med 80+, Low 60+, Lowest 0+)
R: Retention Rate (Typical Binary Group - Highest 30+ days, High 20+, Med 15+, Low 7+, Lowest 2+)
S: Speed (Subjective, based on server load impact and distance from backbones)
Q#: Quality / Reliabilty (A=almost perfect record, B=Occasional crashes, but bearable, C=Up and down like a yoyo
X#: Number of simultaneous connections - Note, bandwidth limits may reduce effectiveness of multiple connections
H: Headers not included in quotas (headers are free)
W: Web or thumbnail interface available. Interface may only list headers unless also includes “T” (Below)
B: Blocks spam posts automatically, frees up more disk space for longer retention and faster header downloading
A: Allows anonymous posting - Blocks X-trace user header information原文链接: http://www.newsgroupservers.net/