Difference between a Newsreader and a News Server on Usenet
Once you have discovered the Usenet it will quickly become an important part of your online life. In fact you will soon wonder how you ever got by without it. The Usenet has been around for much longer than the internet and is still a really well kept secret. 
It offers a user a chance to have access to message and binary files to download at much faster rates than you would get from the traditional internet.
In these articles, we have been looking at how to get started with the Usenet and all the different terms that are used for different parts of the system. One part that people can confuse is the news servers and the newsreaders so we thought that we should clarify this for you to ensure that you have the difference clear.
The newsreader is the client. The newsreader is a program that will be on your computer and is controlled by you. It is this newsreader that is responsible for interacting with the Usenet for you. Using your newsreader, you connect to the Usenet and access all the data and downloads. It is this newsreader that will display all the information that you want on your screen.
There are many different news readers and options that some people choose to use Windows Outlook. This can be used as a newsreader, but it is not recommended by all. The reason many people do not like to use it is because there is the risk of information leaking. Most Usenet users would be horrified at the thought of information being accessed through their newsreader. For this reason most choose to have a dedicated newsreader program on their computer.
New to Usenet ? Read our getting started series on downloading from Usenet
The news server is located externally from your computer. It is run by a company and will handle all the data requests from different newsreaders. The news server will be the holding location for all the information and files that the newsreader is accessing. The news server is also responsible for propagating the information between other news servers. When you create a post on the Usenet and post it, then the news server is responsible for ensuring that your post spreads out in the Usenet.
You have a range of choices of news server. There are very few news servers that are free. Some providers may offer a free service with their internet packages but this is being phased out and you may well find that your service is limited. It only costs a small amount to get full access and you can pick the package that you want according to your usage of the server, which means you can spend as little or as much as you want.