Welp, buh-bye to this newsgroup

[Rocket J Squirrel]

Effective February 15, 2024, Google Groups will no longer support new Usenet content. Posting and subscribing will be disallowed, and new content from Usenet peers will not appear. Viewing and searching of historical data will still be supported as it is done today.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Where to go next?

[Arthur Conan Doyle]

Rocket J Squirrel <bwei...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Where to go next?

The ratio of good to noise Usenet posts from Google was never very high. $10
will get a subscription from a number of NSPs like Astraweb that lasts for years
if all you download are text groups.

--
Usenet: The world's first (and best) social network.

[Andrew]

"Eternal September" is what I use as my Newgroup reader source. It
never sunsets. (At least so far.)

https://www.eternal-september.org/

--
-----------------------------------------------------------
Regards -

- Andrew

[Steve Stone]

On 12/14/2023 8:24 PM, Rocket J Squirrel wrote:

Free non binary access to Usenet newsgroups:
https://www.eternal-september.org/

You will need a program like Mozilla Thunderbird to access these feeds.

Steve

[Andrew]

True. It is just another 'account' within my Thunderbird list, like
several of my email accounts from Google and Yahoo. Point here is I
access it through a single source (Thunderbird) at the same time I am
accessing my true email accounts. Processes like downloading,
manipulation of archived mail etc. all is handled exactly the same and
with full transfer benefits to cloud etc. via the one application
(Thunderbird).

And yes, I donate to them yearly for their excellent software.

[John Pollard]

On Friday, December 15, 2023 at 8:28:18 AM UTC-6, Andrew wrote:

> "Eternal September" is what I use as my Newgroup reader source.
> It never sunsets. (At least so far.)

I have virtually no knowledge in this area,
so I'm hoping someone can clear this up for me.

My understanding is the the newsgroup posts are stored on Google servers,
and that Google is not going to add any new posts to the discussions they're
storing after Feb 15, 2024.

So, if my understanding is accurate;
how would any new (subsequent to Feb 15) newsgroup questions/answers
be saved and correlated within a given discussion as they are now.

[It appears to me that Google will be retaining the existing stored discussions,
and will be allowing users the continued ability to search for and read those
existing discussions.]

[Taxed and Spent]

This is what I do on my office computer, but on my smartphone I have
been using Google Groups as a read only method. What now for smartphones?

[Steve Stone]

On 12/16/2023 12:25 PM, John Pollard wrote:
> On Friday, December 15, 2023 at 8:28:18 AM UTC-6, Andrew wrote:
>
>> "Eternal September" is what I use as my Newgroup reader source.
>> It never sunsets. (At least so far.)
>
> I have virtually no knowledge in this area,
> so I'm hoping someone can clear this up for me.
>

Google hooked into Usenet to bring you this group and others.

Google keeps an archive of Usenet conversations on their cloud/servers.

Usenet is independent from Google, it existed way before Google, Usenet
group feeds are carried on multiple servers through out the world.

When Google turns off their Usenet feed only leaving old conversations
on their servers Usenet will still be hosting live, current
conversations and groups, like this one.

The trick is to find a new Usenet feed. Eternal September is a good FREE
choice for text Usenet groups.

Bonus: Most spam is injected into these groups from Google feeds.
When Google disables there feed the spam noise floor should
significantly drop.

From Wikipedia:

Usenet (/ˈjuːznɛt/), USENET,[1] or "in full", User's Network,[1] is a
worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was
developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up
network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in
1979, and it was established in 1980.[2] Users read and post messages
(called articles or posts, and collectively termed news) to one or more
topic categories, known as newsgroups. Usenet resembles a bulletin board
system (BBS) in many respects and is the precursor to the Internet
forums that have become widely used. Discussions are threaded, as with
web forums and BBSes, though posts are stored on the server
sequentially.[3][4]

A major difference between a BBS or web message board and Usenet is the
absence of a central server and dedicated administrator or hosting
provider. Usenet is distributed among a large, constantly changing set
of news servers that store and forward messages to one another via "news
feeds". Individual users may read messages from and post to a local (or
simply preferred) news server, which can be operated by anyone, and
those posts will automatically be forwarded to any other news servers
peered with the local one, while the local server will receive any news
its peers have that it currently lacks. This results in the automatic
proliferation of content posted by any user on any server to any other
user subscribed to the same newsgroups on other servers.

As with BBSes and message boards, individual news servers or service
providers are under no obligation to carry any specific content, and may
refuse to do so for many reasons: a news server might attempt to control
the spread of spam by refusing to accept or forward any posts that
trigger spam filters, or a server without high-capacity data storage may
refuse to carry any newsgroups used primarily for file sharing, limiting
itself to discussion-oriented groups. However, unlike BBSes and web
forums, the dispersed nature of Usenet usually permits users who are
interested in receiving some content to access it simply by choosing to
connect to news servers that carry the feeds they want.

Usenet is culturally and historically significant in the networked
world, having given rise to, or popularized, many widely recognized
concepts and terms such as "FAQ", "flame", "sockpuppet", and "spam".[5]
In the early 1990s, shortly before access to the Internet became
commonly affordable, Usenet connections via Fidonet's dial-up BBS
networks made long-distance or worldwide discussions and other
communication widespread, not needing a server, just (local) telephone
service.[6]

The name Usenet comes from the term "users' network".[3] The first
Usenet group was NET.general, which quickly became net.general.[7] The
first commercial spam on Usenet was from immigration attorneys Canter
and Siegel advertising green card services.[7]

On the Internet, Usenet is transported via the Network News Transfer
Protocol (NNTP) on TCP Port 119 for standard, unprotected connections
and on TCP port 563 for SSL encrypted connections.

[Steve Stone]

On 12/16/2023 2:33 PM, Taxed and Spent wrote:
>
> This is what I do on my office computer, but on my smartphone I have
> been using Google Groups as a read only method.  What now for smartphones?
>

Android Play Store has a few Usenet App options for Android, none that I
have tried.

[John Pollard]

On Sunday, December 17, 2023 at 8:48:36 AM UTC-6, Steve Stone wrote:

> Google hooked into Usenet to bring you this group and others.
>
> Google keeps an archive of Usenet conversations on their cloud/servers.
>
> Usenet is independent from Google, it existed way before Google, Usenet
> group feeds are carried on multiple servers through out the world.
>
> When Google turns off their Usenet feed only leaving old conversations
> on their servers Usenet will still be hosting live, current
> conversations and groups, like this one.
>
> The trick is to find a new Usenet feed. Eternal September is a good FREE
> choice for text Usenet groups.
>
> Bonus: Most spam is injected into these groups from Google feeds.
> When Google disables there feed the spam noise floor should
> significantly drop.

Thank you. That's good to know.

[Andrew Schmidt]

On 12/16/2023 2:33 PM, Taxed and Spent wrote:

Ah, that's out of my purview. I don't 'do' NGs on my cell. Good question.