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ISP ending Usenet service: which free/cheap ones are best?

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AKT

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Jun 9, 2009, 10:38:24 AM6/9/09
to
My ISP (ATT) just sent this:

> Please note that on or around July 15, 2009, AT&T will no longer be
> offering access to the Usenet netnews service.

Does anybody know which free / cheap services are best?

Bob Lombard

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Jun 9, 2009, 10:52:20 AM6/9/09
to

Best schmest. Forteinc is $2.95/month and unobtrusive. Hmm... it isn't
intrusive either. They hitch to usnews mostly, which can be accessed
directly (also for a fee?).

John Navas

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Jun 9, 2009, 11:00:11 AM6/9/09
to
On Tue, 09 Jun 2009 09:38:24 -0500, AKT <a...@null.void> wrote in
<090620090938243222%a...@null.void>:

Tera News <http://www.teranews.com/>
One-time setup fee of $4, no monthly charge:

--
Best regards,
John
Panasonic DMC-FZ28 (and several others)

ray

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Jun 9, 2009, 11:13:43 AM6/9/09
to

I've been quite happy with news.individual.net - it costs about one euro
per month.

Savageduck

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Jun 9, 2009, 11:35:35 AM6/9/09
to

I am using Panic.com http://www.panic.com/unison/access.php for $9.95/month.

I see you are a Mac/Thoth user. I also paid for Panic's client Unison,
which I find very Mac-centric and intuitive to use, but that would be
your decision. Their Usenet access can be used with whichever client
you want.


--
Regards,

Savageduck

whosbest54

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Jun 9, 2009, 2:23:16 PM6/9/09
to
In article <090620090938243222%a...@null.void>, a...@null.void says...
Go to alt.free.newsservers and read a bit. There are several choices.

whosbest54
--
The flamewars are over...if you want it.

Unofficial rec.audio.opinion Usenet Group Brief User Guide:
http://whosbest54.netau.net/rao.htm

Unofficial rec.music.beatles Usenet Group Brief User Guide:
http://whosbest54.netau.net/rmb.html

Nobody

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Jun 9, 2009, 2:23:20 PM6/9/09
to

"AKT" <a...@null.void> wrote in message
news:090620090938243222%a...@null.void...

news.motzarella.org

news.aioe.org

both are free, ok most of the time

William Black

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Jun 9, 2009, 3:02:39 PM6/9/09
to
Nobody wrote:

>
> "AKT" <a...@null.void> wrote in message
> news:090620090938243222%a...@null.void...
>> My ISP (ATT) just sent this:
>>
>>> Please note that on or around July 15, 2009, AT&T will no longer be
>>> offering access to the Usenet netnews service.
>>
>> Does anybody know which free / cheap services are best?
>
> news.motzarella.org

Seconded.


--
William Black

Jim Menning

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Jun 9, 2009, 4:08:10 PM6/9/09
to

"Nobody" <nob...@cares.invalid> wrote in message
news:h0m9b1$ek6$1...@freespeech.eternal-september.org...

I've tried both of them and also free.teranews.com and textnews.new.cambrium.nl .

But the one I found to be consistently the best was news.albasani.net . They seem to
have lots less downtime and greater retention than most. I also kept the teranews
just for the binaries groups, which albasani doesn't carry.


Don Lancaster

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Jun 9, 2009, 7:02:12 PM6/9/09
to

news.individual.net works well for us.

--
Many thanks,

Don Lancaster voice phone: (928)428-4073
Synergetics 3860 West First Street Box 809 Thatcher, AZ 85552
rss: http://www.tinaja.com/whtnu.xml email: d...@tinaja.com

Please visit my GURU's LAIR web site at http://www.tinaja.com

SMS

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Jun 9, 2009, 9:51:45 PM6/9/09
to
Don Lancaster wrote:
> AKT wrote:
>> My ISP (ATT) just sent this:
>>
>>> Please note that on or around July 15, 2009, AT&T will no longer be
>>> offering access to the Usenet netnews service.
>>
>> Does anybody know which free / cheap services are best?
>
> news.individual.net works well for us.

OMG, can you autograph my copy of the TTL Cookbook?!

James E. Morrow

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Jun 9, 2009, 10:31:57 PM6/9/09
to
In article <7987vrF...@mid.individual.net>, d...@tinaja.com says...

> AKT wrote:
> > My ISP (ATT) just sent this:
> >
> >> Please note that on or around July 15, 2009, AT&T will no longer be
> >> offering access to the Usenet netnews service.
> >
> > Does anybody know which free / cheap services are best?
>
> news.individual.net works well for us.
>
>
The following information was correct recently but should be checked at
the web sites of the various providers.

Options for free or low cost news servers.

Individual.net

http://news.individual.net/

Registration required. Price 10 Eros a year. No binaries. No sex
groups. No nonsense. This is a very dependable server for text. Spam
filtering is superior to most other servers I've used.

newsgate. xprivat.org

http://www.x-privat.org/international.php

Registration required. This server in now free. Text and some (few)
binaries. This server is faster than
individual.net but may lack some groups. Its binary completion should
not be depended upon.

Sunsite.dk

http://dotsrc.org/usenet/

Free text only, registration required. This server now only carries
the comp groups.

News.aioe

http://news.aioe.org/

No registration required. Free server. Text only. Limit of 25 posts
per day.

Motzarella.org
http://motzarella.org/

A free server, registration required.

"Apart from de.* (including de.alt.dateien.*) news.motzarella.org
carries the Big 8, alt.* (approx. 8000 groups) and several regional
hierarchies (more than 200).

For tests, information and support for users of news.motzarella.org the
local hierarchy motzarella.* is open to unregistered users, too.
Retention is currently 1 year for de.*, 40 days for alt.* and 30 days
for the Big 8 and other hierarchies."
***********************************************************************
**********************
Albasani.net

http://albasani.net/

Like Motarella, Albasani.net is free and requires registration. Easy
email registration.

=3FDo you have binary groups?

We have de.alt.dateien.misc and de.alt.dateien.weibsbilder, but none of
the big binary hierarchies.=3F See also
http://albasani.net/technical/cleanfeed.html.en#Binaries_Allowed

Some limits on cross posting across domains.

***********************************************************************
*************************
Astraweb.com
Paid server with block plans.

http://www.news.astraweb.com/downloadplans.html

We are offering $25 for 110GB! Other plans available.

--
James E. Morrow
Email to: jamese...@email.com

tony cooper

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Jun 9, 2009, 11:09:37 PM6/9/09
to
On Tue, 9 Jun 2009 21:31:57 -0500, James E. Morrow
<jamese...@email.com> wrote:

>http://news.individual.net/
>
>Registration required. Price 10 Eros a year. No binaries. No sex
>groups. No nonsense. This is a very dependable server for text. Spam
>filtering is superior to most other servers I've used.

I've been using news.individual.net ("the German server")for years.
It was free until a couple of years ago. I found it complicated to
pay for the first time because they had to be paid in Euros (10 Euro =
US $14.07), but I paid through credit card with ClickandBuy and still
renew through them. I think they take PayPal now.

--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

Bob Larter

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Jun 10, 2009, 1:05:53 AM6/10/09
to

Ask in alt.free.news-servers, they should be able to recommend several.

--
W
. | ,. w , "Some people are alive only because
\|/ \|/ it is illegal to kill them." Perna condita delenda est
---^----^---------------------------------------------------------------

Don Lancaster

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Jun 10, 2009, 12:53:07 PM6/10/09
to


OMG is not currently reachable.
Besides, that would be forgery.

Message has been deleted

Your name

unread,
Jun 10, 2009, 10:47:55 PM6/10/09
to
John Navas <spamf...@navasgroup.com> wrote in
news:i7us259fq938gqqff...@4ax.com:

> On Tue, 09 Jun 2009 09:38:24 -0500, AKT <a...@null.void> wrote in
> <090620090938243222%a...@null.void>:
>
>>My ISP (ATT) just sent this:
>>
>>> Please note that on or around July 15, 2009, AT&T will no longer be
>>> offering access to the Usenet netnews service.
>>
>>Does anybody know which free / cheap services are best?
>
> Tera News <http://www.teranews.com/>
> One-time setup fee of $4, no monthly charge:

And limited to what, 2 mb a day ?

Maybe good if you only browse text groups, for binaries try easynews

James E. Morrow

unread,
Jun 11, 2009, 9:47:02 PM6/11/09
to
In article <re8u2595fjpm4njoa...@4ax.com>, tony_cooper213
@earthlink.net says...

Click and Buy works for me but Citibank false alerts claiming that the
charge is fraudulent. This happens every April Fools Day.

Dan Szymborski

unread,
Jun 12, 2009, 12:18:54 AM6/12/09
to
In article <MPG.249b6308c...@news.individual.net>,
jamese...@email.com says...

I love using Paypal, simply because of the ease of generating
one-time use credit card numbers.

I was on Time Warner and they discontinued usenet. I tried
doing it through Google Groups, but I don't care for reading
usenet in a web format, so I use the free text newsgroup
service at motzarella.org.

--
Dan Szymborski
d...@baseballprimer.com

SMS

unread,
Jun 12, 2009, 2:45:21 AM6/12/09
to
Don Lancaster wrote:

> OMG is not currently reachable.

Maybe not by you. I have a direct line.

Atheist Chaplain

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Jun 12, 2009, 6:46:58 AM6/12/09
to
"SMS" <scharf...@geemail.com> wrote in message
news:pPmYl.13072$im1....@nlpi061.nbdc.sbc.com...

> Don Lancaster wrote:
>
>> OMG is not currently reachable.
>
> Maybe not by you. I have a direct line.

time to get your medication levels checked again ;-)

--
[This comment is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Church of
Scientology International]
"I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your
Christ." Gandhi

SMS

unread,
Jun 29, 2009, 12:08:31 AM6/29/09
to

Depending on where you are, you might look for a provider that isn't
discontinuing Usenet, rather than looking for free Usenet service.

But check out "https://news.individual.net/".

Paul Furman

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Jun 29, 2009, 1:09:33 PM6/29/09
to

I've been fine with the free motzarella.org service for about a week.
Funny though, when I tried reading this thread last night, I had reached
the daily limit:
http://www.eternal-september.org/
"The number of connections per day and per user has been limited to 1200."
Which is fine really... if I reach that limit I should go out & play in
the sun for a while <g>.

--
Paul Furman
www.edgehill.net
www.baynatives.com

all google groups messages filtered due to spam

Miles

unread,
Jun 29, 2009, 1:47:33 PM6/29/09
to
* Paul Furman wrote, On 6/29/2009 10:09:
> SMS wrote:
>> AKT wrote:
>>> My ISP (ATT) just sent this:
>>>
>>>> Please note that on or around July 15, 2009, AT&T will no longer be
>>>> offering access to the Usenet netnews service.
>>> Does anybody know which free / cheap services are best?
>> Depending on where you are, you might look for a provider that isn't
>> discontinuing Usenet, rather than looking for free Usenet service.
>>
>> But check out "https://news.individual.net/".
>
> I've been fine with the free motzarella.org service for about a week.
> Funny though, when I tried reading this thread last night, I had reached
> the daily limit:
> http://www.eternal-september.org/
> "The number of connections per day and per user has been limited to 1200."
> Which is fine really... if I reach that limit I should go out & play in
> the sun for a while <g>.
>

Perhaps you are downloading the msgs in their entirety, not simply the
headers?

Lumpy

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Jun 29, 2009, 1:48:45 PM6/29/09
to
Miles wrote:

> Perhaps you are downloading the msgs in their entirety, not simply the
> headers?

From six different, cross-posted newsgroups!

Pay the fuckin' 13 bucks per year for individual.net
from the Univ of Berlin.


Lumpy

In Your Ears for 40 Something Years
www.LumpyMusic.com


Paul Furman

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Jun 29, 2009, 2:17:32 PM6/29/09
to

Just headers and I actually read a fairly small percentage. There are 4
photo groups I frequent (11 others I rarely visit but header counts
load) and I use a lot of filters to mark as read as well as marking
cross-posted threads ignored so a whole lot of headers... I kind of
doubt I actually viewed 1,200 messages yesterday though I guess it's
possible... I flip through them pretty quickly with hot keys in thunderbird.

--

John Navas

unread,
Jun 29, 2009, 2:22:46 PM6/29/09
to
On Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:48:45 -0700, "Lumpy"
<lu...@digitalcartography.com> wrote in
<7asd5lF...@mid.individual.net>:

>Miles wrote:
>
>> Perhaps you are downloading the msgs in their entirety, not simply the
>> headers?
>
>From six different, cross-posted newsgroups!
>
>Pay the fuckin' 13 bucks per year for individual.net
>from the Univ of Berlin.

Usenet-News
Current prices for Lifetime Block download accounts
Block size Cost/block
2 GB $ 2.00 1.00 USD/GB
5 GB $ 3.00 0.60 USD/GB
10 GB $ 5.00 0.50 USD/GB
20 GB $ 8.00 0.40 USD/GB
30 GB $ 10.00 0.33 USD/GB
50 GB $ 15.00 0.30 USD/GB

--
Best regards,
John (Panasonic DMC-FZ28, and several others)

Miles

unread,
Jun 29, 2009, 2:48:37 PM6/29/09
to
* Paul Furman wrote, On 6/29/2009 11:17:
> Miles wrote:
>> * Paul Furman wrote, On 6/29/2009 10:09:
>>> SMS wrote:
>>>> AKT wrote:
>>>>> My ISP (ATT) just sent this:
>>>>>

>>> I've been fine with the free motzarella.org service for about a week.
>>> Funny though, when I tried reading this thread last night, I had
>>> reached the daily limit:
>>> http://www.eternal-september.org/
>>> "The number of connections per day and per user has been limited to
>>> 1200."
>>> Which is fine really... if I reach that limit I should go out & play
>>> in the sun for a while <g>.
>>>
>> Perhaps you are downloading the msgs in their entirety, not simply the
>> headers?
>
> Just headers and I actually read a fairly small percentage. There are 4
> photo groups I frequent (11 others I rarely visit but header counts
> load) and I use a lot of filters to mark as read as well as marking
> cross-posted threads ignored so a whole lot of headers... I kind of
> doubt I actually viewed 1,200 messages yesterday though I guess it's
> possible... I flip through them pretty quickly with hot keys in thunderbird.
>

Interesting, yesterday I registered with motzarella and opened 14
groups with 20,341 msgs. Opened perhaps 100 of those headers to
ascertain importance and mark in red (Thunderbird coloring). Also had
to change all from sort by ascending to descending, but don't believe
that would be seen on their computers.

Paul Furman

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Jun 29, 2009, 3:20:59 PM6/29/09
to

Good point. I must have actually opened 1,200 messages yesterday because
when I first set it up I had to download a zillion messages to get up to
date.

Ron Hunter

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Jun 29, 2009, 5:15:01 PM6/29/09
to
You don't have to download ANY messages, just the message headers, and
some news servers don't charge for downloading headers. Giganews
doesn't, and they have 12GB/month for $12.99US. Very reliable, fast,
and great retention. I have no stake on any kind in Giganews, but I am
happy with their value.

SMS

unread,
Jun 30, 2009, 12:49:07 PM6/30/09
to
Ron Hunter wrote:

> You don't have to download ANY messages, just the message headers, and
> some news servers don't charge for downloading headers. Giganews
> doesn't, and they have 12GB/month for $12.99US. Very reliable, fast,
> and great retention. I have no stake on any kind in Giganews, but I am
> happy with their value.

If you need the binaries, then paying such a high monthly cost might
make sense.

If you just want the text, then news.individual.net, at 10 EUR/year
(about $14/year) is a much better deal.

Kelly Greene

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Jul 1, 2009, 8:04:38 AM7/1/09
to

"SMS" <scharf...@geemail.com> wrote in message
news:g6X1m.10831$aX1....@nlpi067.nbdc.sbc.com...

>>
>> Does anybody know which free / cheap services are best?

AIOE http://news.aioe.org/
Albasani http://albasani.net/index.html.en
CNNTP http://www.cnntp.org/cnntp - cnntp.org
ETT http://news.ett.com.ua/
Motzarella http://motzarella.org/
Solani http://news.solani.org/
Tornevall http://news.tornevall.net/
Usenet4all http://www.usenet4all.se (blocks all posts from Google)

Sebastien Willemijn's list
free.sonic-news.com
news.mixmin.net
news.solani.org
news.datemas.de
news.tornevall.net
news.motzarella.org
news.albasani.net
news.readfreenews.net
allnews.readfreenews.net
news.aioe.org
gail.ripco.com
news.gwdg.de
nntp.idg.pl
usenet.ath.cx
See descriptors annex2
http://80.247.230.136/nntpeng.htm

Free UseNet providers:
AIOE http://news.aioe.org/
Albasani http://albasani.net/index.html.en
CNNTP http://www.cnntp.org/cnntp
ETT http://news.ett.com.ua/
Motzarella http://motzarella.org/
Solani http://news.solani.org/


--
Kelly..........
If you're a past or present resident of
NYC and want to share past experiences
and current events with others from NYC,
check out this free message Board:
http://members6.boardhost.com/QueensNYer/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

dr-...@wi.rr.com

unread,
Jul 4, 2009, 11:41:57 AM7/4/09
to
news.eternal-september.org
Somewhere between zone 5 and 6 tucked along the shore of Lake Michigan
on the council grounds of the Fox, Mascouten, Potawatomi, and Winnebago

Frank Provasek

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Jul 6, 2009, 9:15:54 PM7/6/09
to
On Jun 9, 9:38 am, AKT <a...@null.void> wrote:
> My ISP (ATT) just sent this:
>
> > Please note that on or around July 15, 2009, AT&T will no longer be
> > offering access to the Usenet netnews service.
>
> Does anybody know which free / cheap services are best?

www.groups.google.com is a free web-based interface suitable for those
not interested in binaries

----
Frank Provasek Rare Coins
http://www.frankcoins.com Ebay FRANKCOINS
Member ANA, Texas Numismatic Assoc, Texas Coin Dealers Assoc,
PCGS, NGC, & ANACS authorized dealer, Texas Auctioneer Lic 11259

Anti-Spammer-101

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Jul 6, 2009, 9:43:20 PM7/6/09
to
SPAM

Anti-Troll-01

unread,
Jul 7, 2009, 12:10:31 AM7/7/09
to
On Jul 6, 6:15 pm, Frank Provasek <fr...@frankcoins.com> wrote:
> On Jun 9, 9:38 am, AKT <a...@null.void> wrote:
>
> > My ISP (ATT) just sent this:
>
> > > Please note that on or around July 15, 2009, AT&T will no longer be
> > > offering access to the Usenet netnews service.
>
> > Does anybody know which free / cheap services are best?
>
> www.groups.google.comis a free web-based interface suitable for those

> not interested in binaries
>
> ----
> Frank Provasek Rare Coinshttp://www.frankcoins.comEbay FRANKCOINS

> Member ANA, Texas Numismatic Assoc, Texas Coin Dealers Assoc,
> PCGS, NGC, & ANACS authorized dealer, Texas Auctioneer Lic 11259

[original thread title restored]

Kalman Rubinson

unread,
Sep 2, 2009, 9:45:00 AM9/2/09
to
On Tue, 09 Jun 2009 09:38:24 -0500, AKT <a...@null.void>
wrote:

>My ISP (ATT) just sent this:
>
>> Please note that on or around July 15, 2009, AT&T will no longer be
>> offering access to the Usenet netnews service.
>
>Does anybody know which free / cheap services are best?

I have been using News.individual.DE for years now. Cost is
10Euro/year.

Kal

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