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| Author | Are there any free usenet providers around? (Read 24386 times) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Knezzen
Administrator 512 MB  Posts: 608 Village idiot 
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on: April 14, 2023, 08:50
I'm experimenting with NNTP support for our forum and stumbled on the forgotten tresure that is Usenet or Newsgroups. I remember our ISP providing usenet back in the day (early 00's) but they don't anymore from what I can find out. Are there any free usenet providers around still, or are we left with the commercial providers only? |
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68040
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512 MB  Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !
Reply #1 on: April 14, 2023, 11:14
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There are quite a few free newsservers around, but newsnet itself is pretty much dead. There are some forums still alive, but the bulk of them is just rotting away in obscurity.
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Knezzen
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Administrator 512 MB Posts: 608 Village idiot
Reply #2 on: April 14, 2023, 14:03
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Sad  Still, it would be fun to browse around and see what's still active and what's not.
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wove
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1024 MB Posts: 1363
Reply #3 on: April 14, 2023, 19:03
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I. came across this. <http://usenet__servers.tripod.com> It looks to be an older site. I used a modern browser, but it is just http so might be alright with older browser. It looks to be mostly a search site for newsgroups. Even back when news groups were a big thing, they tended to be sort of a black hole. Sort of the retro version of the dark web. The last I remember them being popular at all was they were a place to download pirated commercial media. Have fun.
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68040
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512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !
Reply #4 on: April 14, 2023, 19:24
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My memory differs here, but then I criss crossed the Usenet when it was still "fresh". I remember it as a vintage version of Facebook and Twitter combined. You could either just post short snippets of whatever or engage in lengthy - and mostly pointless - back & forth in more active newsgroups. Usenet was popular for downloading *all* kinds of content - because you could search "globally" there decades before file hosting sites with useful search engines appeared. It was your "one place for all things" - from ASCII encoded pictures all the way to complete binary installs. But now it seems to be as dead as Babylon, after the Persians sacked it.
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ovalking
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128 MB Posts: 199
Reply #5 on: April 14, 2023, 21:01
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I use http://www.eternal-september.org My favourite client is Nuntius. It is true to say, there's not much of interest there these days, which is a shame. NNTP is the perfect platform for forums IMO. It is so much easier to use and manage messages than any web-based forum could hope to be. I have no idea why people don't use it.
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68040
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512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !
Reply #6 on: April 14, 2023, 22:04
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I call it the "myspace effect". Once a social platform has become "uncool" to use, nobody wants to get caught dead on it anymore. The moment you talk to friends and family about meeting there, you risk getting ostracized as the dude who hangs around creepy places online.
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wove
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1024 MB Posts: 1363
Reply #7 on: April 14, 2023, 22:39
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Usenet is where spam first appeared. I think the problem was there was leadership, no moderation and even solid focused groups (comp.sys.cbm) were very quickly overtaken with spam, and flamewars, and off topic rants. It was a useful resource in the later 70s into the early 80s, but even by 85 it was pretty much a cess pool. Personally I gave up on it when I was still using an 8bit computer. Maybe since it is no longer popular or much used it has went back to being a good source, but unless the structure and operation has changed, I would expect that any sort of revival would quickly just fall off the rails.
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68040
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512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !
Reply #8 on: April 15, 2023, 00:16
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Yep, I remember when robo-postings took over and all of a sudden most newsrooms were flooded with the same sexually laden garbage. That was what drove me of Usenet myself. But I came back shortly when I found a collection of groups that were actually well maintained. Then I lost sight of it and now the garbage is gone together with the good stuff. Time takes its toll on all of us.
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MTT
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256 MB Posts: 394 SSW7 Oldtimer
Reply #9 on: April 15, 2023, 03:06
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Free newsgroup providers tend to be text only, non binary. There are less available today than there were 10 years ago. The best free service is http://www.eternal-september.org/ which ovalking has already mentioned, and is also my favorite. It (out of the free news servers) has very good retention of posts, and the maintainer, "Ray Banana", goes to great lengths to maintain a trouble free service. Another good free news server is https://www.solani.org/ This has at least one gotcha, in that if the account is not used for more than one month, it will be automatically removed. - a reactivation of the account would be required. A very popular non-free but inexpensive news server, is http://www.individual.net/ which is maintained by Freie Universität Berlin and costs 10 EUR per year - and is also a text only service. My preference for a newsreading client to read/post with, is that it must have good PCRE support built-in (mainly to help deal with unwanted posts). So on classic Mac and early OS X, this has to be MT-NewsWatcher for me.
Last Edit: April 15, 2023, 08:53 by MTT
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