Usenet News

Usenet and usenet industry news collected here. Articles are listed in reverse chronological order.

• Improving programming skills with USENET Newsgroups

  How Usenet newsgroups can improve your programming skills and why you should check them out.

• Supernews Upgrades Service to 500 Days Retention

  Supernews announces retention increases. They have made the jump from 400 to 500 days of binary retention.

• UseNetServer Upgrades Their Website

  UseNetServer re - releases their website and is in the process of upgrading their NZB creator/search system

• August 2010 Usenet Newz

  Usenet News for August 2010 - Special offers, retention increases and new nzb sites.

• Giganews World Cup Special Ending – Retention up to 700 now

  Giganews' World Cup special is ending tomorrow so take advantage of it while you still can.

• July 2010 Usenet News

  Giganews World Cup Special, Free Newhosting Accounts For ex-Cox Usenet users and Easynews upgrades are the Usenet news for July 2010

• June 2010 Usenet News

  Save money when you signup for a Usenet account using one of our two special offers for either Supernews or Newsdemon.

• May 2010 Usenet News

  Usenet news for May 2010 - Whats been going on in the world of Usenet and Usenet service providers

• Newshosting Special Offers and Giganews Updates

  Newshosting offers time sensitive special pricing and discounts. Giganews updates and upgrades their Silver membership plan.

• Bit Torrents Poisoned ? Better Try Usenet

  Find out Bittorrent poisoning - Yet another reason why Usenet is much more anonymous and safe than Bitorrent.

• Cox Drops Their Usenet Service

  Effective June 30, 2010, Cox Communications will discontinue Usenet service to our subscribers. Find out why Cox service was never very good to begin with and get some special offers on new signups

• VyprVPN Updates

  VyprVPN continues the process of upgrading their infrastructure to support multiple VPN locations without the United States. Please check out our independant test results.

• Newzbin Found Guilty

  Newzbin has been found guilty in March 2010 of disseminating copyrighted material in a High Court in the UK. Here are some relevant links and information.

• Newshosting updates their Usenet plans

  Newshosting has both updated restructured their pricing plans and is continuing to offer their Saint Patrick's day discount. Learn here and get the discount!

• VyprVPN added to Giganews Diamond Plan

  Giganews adds VyprVPN service permanently to their Diamond Plan. Find out more about VyprVPN and see our recent VyprVPN test results.

• Retention Rates On The Rise

  Usenet retention rates continue to climb in April 2010 and expect the increases to continue.

• 2010 NANOG Meeting

  February the 21st sees the 48th NANOG (North American Network Operators Group) meeting. The focus of NANOG is to monitor, highlight and solve problems which arise from the operation and expansion of the internet.

• Newzbin Under Fire

  Newzbin has been around a long time, it was one of the very first USENET indexing services to spring into existence. Now they are coming under fire.

• Mac USENET downloading tips

  Three tips that will be of help to Mac USENET downloader

• France Getting Tough on Anti-Piracy

  France is getting tough on Anti-Piracy with their three strikes and you are out program. Learn about some solutions here.

• Secure Internet Access in China with VyprVPN

  How to secure and encrypt your Internet access with a VPN service. Particularly good if you live in a restricted country like China.

• Black Friday Usenet Specials

  Black Friday Time Limited Usenet special offers

• Is Astraweb Slow

  You maybe wondering if Astraweb service is slow ? Well not according to our tests. Check out our article and video review for details

• Newshosting Unlimited and Website Relaunch

  We think the newshosting unlimited is the best plan. Click here to find out why and get access to a special discount.

• Usenet Retention Increases

  Most of our recommended Usenet services now offer OVER 400 days of binary retention.

• September Usenet News and Usenet Giants

  Its well past September 2009 now but here are some recent Usenet related stories.

• Usenet Net Neutrality

  There has been a lot of talk recently about Net Neutrality recently. In UsenetReviewz's opinion, net neutrality is a good thing for Usenet, usenet providers and usenet users.

• Verizon Usenet Specials

  Some special offers from various Usenet providers now that Verizon has closed down their Usenet access.

• Supernews Upgrades their Usenet Service

  Supernews has upgraded their usenet service and is now offering one simplified plan with a lots of nice features.

• Usenet News for August

  Usenet news for August 2009. New specials for Verizon usenet customers and related industry news.

• Usenet Resource Downloader

  Usenet Resource Downloader or URD - announces their version 1.0 which is a Usenet downloading software written entirely in PHP. Details here.

• Giganews Binary Retention Increases

  Giganews broke new ground by going beyond 365 days of binary retention for all of their 100,000-plus newsgroups. More details here

• Power Usenet Service Upgrades

  Power Usenet announces services upgrades. 100 additional retention days added immediately. Plus 12 more connections - now 30 total. Details and analysis here.

• ThunderNews Upgrades

  ThunderNews has increased retention times and the number of Usenet newsgroups. Read about the upgrades and get a coupon for Thundernews here.

• Giganews Connection Increase

  Giganews has upgraded to 50 simultaneous connections and 20 per basic users. This is good for all Usenet users because Giganews is setting the new connection standard.

• ATT Discontinues Usenet Access

  Some deals and Usenet specials for ATT / Cox users who have had their Usenet access terminated.

• Advantages of Usenet

  Usenet has several advantages over other filesharing networks including privacy, anonymity and high speeds downloads

Improving programming skills with USENET Newsgroups

If you want to learn some programming language, in most cases, you just have to type the name of that language into Google or other preferred search engine and use some keywords (such as tutorial, lessons, etc) to find resources.

If you don’t like this approach, but you like books instead, numerous books are available on Amazon, eBay or some other online store (don’t forget to read the user’s comments before you click buy, though).

On the other hand, there is one excellent resource which is basically much older than WWW and many younger programmers and Internet users may never even heard about; it’s called Usenet.

Although discussions on USENET are slowly losing their battle with various forums available on WWW (mostly due to their fancy options and many other features USENET does not offer), USENET is very often a place where highly skilled programmers with years of experience gather and give advice.

Therefore, if certain newsgroup is active, it is likely that you will get great piece of advice from some top-notch programmer with lots of experience and who wishes to share his knowledge.

It is also good to know that all that is for free, as many Internet service providers offer free access to many text-based newsgroups. Many newsgroups (and their archives) are available through Google Groups, which is free as well.

So, let’s give an example. Suppose you want to learn basics of web development; HTML, CSS, PHP and JavaScript that is. It is a good idea to start from free tutorials available on the Internet, but, sooner or later, you will encounter certain problem that you will not be able to solve by yourself.

Therefore, you will have to consult somebody and this is the point where we recommend USENET groups. Regarding this particular programming and scripting languages, some of the best groups to start are:

• comp.lang.php
• comp.infosystems.www.authoring.misc
• comp.lang.javascript

If you Google a bit more, you will also find some other newsgroups with high quality discussions. Actually, the fact is that discussion could be classified as one of the best and easiest way to learn any programming language.

Finally, let’s say a few words about Usenet access itself. If your Internet service provider does not offer Usenet access for free, you might consider checking our list of some of the best and most affordable Usenet providers. Besides the subscription, you will need software to access newsgroups and post content on them. You can check our list of some of the best Usenet nprograms for these purposes as well.

Supernews Upgrades Service to 500 Days Retention

Top tier Usenet service provider SuperNews just upgrade their Usenet service from 400 days to 500 days in binary retention.  They back been slowly filling in retention days and doing testing and now have officially announced that they have jumped to 500 days.

If you dont know the facts about Supernews, essentially they have a reputation for reliability and speed – you can read our review of Supernews ( be sure to check out the video )  but here are the basic facts:

• Unlimited Usenet Access  – Yes, that’s no limits. Download all you can!
• Unlimited Speed  - No Speed Caps like other providers
• 256-Bit SSL Encryption
• 500 Days of Binary Retention  - Newly Upgraded
• 30 Connections
• 24-Hour Customer Support

Special Pricing Offer For Supernews

Normally the price for Supernews is $11.99 but if you signup with our link here then their pricing is just $9.99/month.

This is essentially the best price around for unlimited monthly Usenet service.  Note, this special available through our Supernews Review page.

Read our review of Supernews or Signup with Supernews.

UseNetServer Upgrades Their Website

UseNetServer has redone and upgraded the website and now its a lot easier to understand at a glance their Usenet offerings.

Recently, UseNetServer has been on a roll in terms of improving the level of service and adding new features such as Paypal support.

If for some reason you haven’t heard of UseNetServer, they are one of the big Usenet industry players and they have been around for a long time.

Why is longevity important when choosing a Usenet provider ? Because many of the small Usenet resellers come and go and if you signup for a a year plan then you want to make sure your Usenet provider will be around in the year to come.

You can read our review of UseNetServer for all the facts but briefly, UseNetServer offers.

• 600 days of retention. This is almost two years of binary files that you can access.
• SSL  and 20 connections
• Excellent Completion
• Special Introductory Pricing
• NZB Creator

Perhaps most important is their low pricing for new users.   These special prices are listed below and are always on our Usenet special offers page.

Note: These special offers are only through a handful of website like UsenetReviewz so be sure sign up here.

Here are our special offers for UsenetReviewz readers:

Click here for $10/Month UseNetServer Special Offer

Click here for the $95/Year($7.95/month) UseNetServer Special Offer

We give the thumbs up for UseNetServer because of their longevity, stability and good level of price performance. Feel free to check out our UseNetServer Review and look at our Usenet special offers page.

August 2010 Usenet Newz

This month we are able to bring UsenetReviewz readers two special offers for two very high quality Usenet providers: Astraweb and UseNetServer

Special Pricing Offers

Check out our Usenet special offers to see our latest deals but to quickly hightlight the news. Both Astraweb and UseNetServer have cheap monthly plans but if you signup for a year in advance you can save a LOT of money of your Usenet service.

It’s less than $8/month if you signup for UseNetServer’s yearly plan at $95/year.

Also for Astraweb’s yearly plan the math works out to $8/month when you pay  $96/year.

While normally we don’t recommended signing up for a yearly plan, both Astraweb and UseNetServer have been in business for several years and continue have always offered solid service. They occasionally have minor blips in service but more or less both of these Usenet providers offer excellent service, retention and completion.

Check out our recommended Usenet special offers and coupons page and also if you want to be extra sure before you signup you can read our reviews of Astraweb and UseNetServer

Usenet Retention Increases

Giganews and Astraweb keep pushing the envelope on retention. Giganews has 2 years of retention and Astraweb is keeping close on their heels just 9 days behind.

New NZB Sites Appear

Merlin’s Portal appears to have closed doors and reopened as NZBportal. You can read our review of NZBPortal or even better be sure to check out our list of top NZB sites.  When you check out list of top NZB sites remember that we do make a distinction between NZB sites and Usenet Search engines.

NZB sites in our definition are human edited whereas Usenet Search engine search indexes of data in real time. Both have their place and we suggest that you think about both when you investigate websites to make your appearance

UsenetServer Accepting Paypal

One of our favorite providers UseNetServer is finally accepting paypal.  We don’t know why they didn’t do this sooner but this should be good especially for their international business.

Newshosting Offering Free Usenet access

Everyone is interested in free Usenet access and Newshosting is giving it away but only to former Cox Usenet service customers. Cox Usenet customers get a full 300 days free of Usenet access and while it’s a calculated marketing move, nonetheless its pretty cool of them to do so.  So if you are former Cox Usenet customer, then read our Newshosting Review for details.

Giganews World Cup Special Ending – Retention up to 700 now

Tomorrow, July 15th, 2010 – Giganews will be pulling their World Cup special. So if you were thinking about signing up for their World Cup special and or you were interested in Giganews then definitely take advantage of their discounted pricing while it is still available.  Check out our review of Giganews for more details and or just click here for the World Cup Special Offer link.

Giganews World Cup Special Last Day

In other news, Giganews continues to grow their retention and they just crossed the 700 day retention barrier.  Presently only Astraweb is close behind with 697 days. UsenetServer and Newshosting are at around 590 ( which is still a LOT ) considering not too long ago 30 days of binary retention was great. Below we have some interesting history taken from a Giganews press release and their website.

History of Giganews’ Binary retention.

Giganews  has maintained a  history of innovating in order to give you the best possible Usenet experience. From Giganews Accelerator to VyprVPN, Giganews has continued to offer new Usenet features as we increase retention.

Check out the Giganews Innovation Timeline below:

• November, 2006 Giganews offers SSL encryption to its members, increasing Usenet browsing security
• April, 2007 Giganews reached 120 days of high-quality binary retention
• May, 2007 Introduction of Giganews Accelerator, a software-based news proxy allowing members to compress headers and enable 256-bit SSL encryption
• September, 2008 240 days of high-quality binary retention
• March, 2009 365 days of high-quality binary retention
• November, 2009 Giganews invites Diamond members to beta of VyprVPN, a personal Virtual Private Network that increases online browsing security
• March, 2010 Giganews adds VyprVPN as an included feature for Diamond memberships
• July, 2010 700 days of high-quality binary retention

Editorial Commentary: Giganews has been a market leader and innovator for many years now. As they mention, innovating products such as SSL and an accelerator and now a VPN that will protect and provide anonymity for Usenet users. Their solid level of service, completion rates and add-ons such as VyprVPN can justify the higher price. Save while you can with their World Cup special.

Check out our review of Giganews for more details and or just click here for the World Cup Special Offer link.

July 2010 Usenet News

We have a few Usenet news items for the month of July 2010.

Retention Keeps Going Up!

First, the good news – Retention increases. Giganews and Astraweb keep up the retention rates marching upwards. As of July 1rst, Giganews is at 693 days and Astraweb is close on their heels with 682 days. UsenetServer and Newshosting are staying at 600 days – which in our opinion is still VERY good if you like downloading binary files.

Giganews World Cup Special

We are able to offer UsenetReviewz.com visitors  - discounted pricing for Giganews while the World Cup last. Instead of their normal, $29.99 pricing you can signup with Giganews for $19.99.   Check out our Giganews Review page for more details or click here. Continue reading»

June 2010 Usenet News

UsenetReviewz is proud to be carrying two Usenet specials this week for our readers.  The first Usenet special is discounted pricing for Supernews, normally it’s 11.99 a month with Supernews but by signing up through our link its $9.99 monthly. Supernews is a well respected brand and we give them 5 stars – read our review of Supernews

The other special we are currently offering is Newsdemon’s demon deal.  That’s $10.95 a month for unlimited downloads and 608 days of retention. Read our review of newsdemon here. Continue reading»

May 2010 Usenet News

+++ VyprVPN Improves Service +++

If you are a Giganews Diamond Plan user then you should be
psyched. VyprVPN has added another service location in the
USA. So if you live near the west coast, like I do now you
will be happy to have another VPN service location. Continue reading»

Newshosting Special Offers and Giganews Updates

Newshosting has announced some special offers available only to a few select websites. Here are the details: Continue reading»

Bit Torrents Poisoned ? Better Try Usenet

Lawrence Latif of the inquirer.net writes an interesting article about Bittorrent Poisoning. Continue reading»