Usenet / Newsgroups.

[smithmr8]

Hi,
Im currently a fairly happy BT customer user, and have just recently discovered there newsgroup [news.btinternet.com].
It is, however, limited to 170KBps.. which is pretty poor considering I'm on an 8MB line and would like to use as much of it as possible.

I was hoping you could give some information on others which do not throttle speed. I know that other ISP's offer their own ones, but I'm assuming you have to be with them in order to be allowed to connect to them ? Or am I wrong in thinking that.

Thanks,
Luke

[TheAnimus]

most people now end up paying an extra few £ per month for a 'premium' access firm.

[smithmr8]

Is there any which particularly stand out in terms of value for money ? Or any decent ones.

[SuicidaL]

Is there any which particularly stand out in terms of value for money ? Or any decent ones.

tried newsdeamon once and they were crap so i'd avoid. been using giganews for the last couple of years, i think it works out £15-18 a month for an unlimited ssl account, and never had any probs.

[smithmr8]

Thanks. I'll give them a try.

[Agent]

Giganews are superb.

[kopite]

I agree with that. GIganews is immence. Been using it for years now and it has huge retention(Think its over 200 days now) and very little corruption I can download a few gig with very little need for par files

[SiM]

What is actually available on these newsgroups?... or is this a question that can't be answered on the forums?

[SuicidaL]

What is actually available on these newsgroups?... or is this a question that can't be answered on the forums?

the imagination is a wonderful thing

[Agent]

What is actually available on these newsgroups?... or is this a question that can't be answered on the forums?

To rephrase your question: What isn't available on newsgroups?
They really are the place where anything goes, including things which would get you instantly arrested and locked up sadly

Although remember the number 1 rules of newsgroups....

[kopite]

You`ll need a decent piece of software for use with the newsgroups.

I`d suggest newsleecher. I think there is an offer on the giganews site to get a free copy of newsleecher or a discount at least

[Papipap]

Is there any which particularly stand out in terms of value for money ? Or any decent ones.

It really depends on how much you down load. Giganews is the best if you're constantly downloading, but if you're like me, and only download certain things every now and then, you might be better off with a block account. These are where you just pay for a certain number of GB and then download whatever you want, whenever you want, without having to pay a monthly subscription. The blocks also never expire, so there is no pressure to use them up.

I only know of two places that do block accounts:

Usenet-News: http://usenet-news.net/

Astraweb: http://www.news.astraweb.com/

I use to use Usenet-News but I have recently switched to Astraweb because they have a slightly longer retention time and allow more connections; however, both always max out my 20 Mb connection. Both also offer SSL encryption, as do most good providers; and although there retention isn't as good as Giganews, a lot of stuff gets reposted anyway.

Oh, and the program I use for downloading is Alt.Binz, which is very lightweight (http://www.altbinz.net/).

[Rainmaker]

Giganews is awesome The best client I've found (and I've tried most, and paid for several) is GrabIT. It's also free. If you're looking for more customisation and something server-side, Sabnzbd is great

[Trash Man]

I use Newsleecher with Giganews. No problems at all Recommend both.

[edp33]

I like easynews (www.easynews.com) alot, been with them 6 years got a great global search page and can create favourite lists etc. Can probably do this on others but never felt the need to look elsewhere

[llololloy]

Giganews is the best of the bunch I've tried by far. Can handle pretty much any speed download, and has great retention and completion.
They are also the most expensive as they need to charge to be able to offer that service. As the difference in price between other OK providers and giganews was only a few quid I've stuck with giganews for years, occasionally trying others out.
Used to use Newsleecher, but after the yearly licence ran out I could no longer access the betas and I really needed auto unrar so I'm using alt.binz (which is free).
It's okay, but I have found it slightly unstable compared to newsleecher (though even that wasn't rock solid).