Are Usenet newsgroups still a thing nowadays?

muzio1964 · 2 Mar 2021 at 01:21

Hi All,

What are your thoughts?...

I was toying with the idea of dipping my toe into usenet again after something like 15 years or so. I dont know what is current or any new pitfalls etc. Are Newsgroups still a good source of information or will I just be raking over old stuff.

Whats good in relation to service providers or readers.

Cheers - Muzio

jsmoke · 2 Mar 2021 at 01:45

İs Reddit not a modern version?

I never used Usenet was often curious as to what it did but I assume kind of like yahoo groups.

mrk · 2 Mar 2021 at 09:00

"information"

NZB is still around and still packed with whatever you might be looking for, loads of services out there now at competitive prices unless you are fine with the daily free allowance ones with low retention periods.

I use it from time to time and subscribe with Newsgroup Ninja as the service provider with SAB as the client and various web based indexers for searching.

chroniclard · 2 Mar 2021 at 09:28

Yes, I get a lot of my information from newsgroups.

Randomface74 · 2 Mar 2021 at 09:39

back in the day there weren't legit alternatives, but there are now, so I'd say use those instead.

malachi · 6 Mar 2021 at 09:19

Jumped back in last month after 10 years. Couldn't figure what was going on. Everything is now jumbled text, hard to search for what you need.

Cancelled sub a few days after.

chroniclard · 6 Mar 2021 at 09:36

malachi said:
Jumped back in last month after 10 years. Couldn't figure what was going on. Everything is now jumbled text, hard to search for what you need.

Cancelled sub a few days after.

Need to use an indexing site.

malachi · 6 Mar 2021 at 09:49

chroniclard said:
Need to use an indexing site.

The ones I used to use are still around but still nothing much I couldn't find elsewhere.

mrk · 6 Mar 2021 at 12:46

There's a lot of sites you can use that are excellent for content. Probably can't mention them here though...

whitecrook · 6 Mar 2021 at 12:50

What about non binary gro ups though. Uk.media.tv.misc used to be a good place to discuss TV shows

JohnG7 · 6 Mar 2021 at 12:54

AstraWeb+SAB and a few good member index sites (not garbled txt) easy as click file and it is then downloading at 1Gb/s.

AFAIK Virgin Media still host a free one with 30 days retention but do not advertise it now (unless that has changed recently).

OldKitMan · 6 Mar 2021 at 13:55

used to spend a huge amount of time on usenet back in the day. uk.rec.cars.misc, alt.tv.prisoner-cell-block-h, airports, dvd, etc,etc.

Seems to have disappeared for that kind of activity these days.

malachi · 6 Mar 2021 at 14:07

OldKitMan said:
used to spend a huge amount of time on usenet back in the day. uk.rec.cars.misc, alt.tv.prisoner-cell-block-h, airports, dvd, etc,etc.

Seems to have disappeared for that kind of activity these days.

Reddit come along and they disappeared.

JohnG7 · 6 Mar 2021 at 14:25

Not sure if against rules as not all content is warez and you could find warez using Google or Reddit we and can mention them here but there are plenty of NBZ index sites, some you need join (the better ones), if I get the OK from staff I will post 3 or 4 names and you can look them up.

I use them sometimes daily and torrents as fall back but again only a members site.

denigor777 · 12 Mar 2021 at 22:25

I can still find my Usenet posts from my Uni days back in 1993!!

rec.games.pinball ftw!!

SexyGreyFox · 12 Mar 2021 at 23:50

Yes

You have been signed-up continuously since Tue Sep 28 09:50:48 MST 2004 (16.46380898 years).

mid_gen · 14 Mar 2021 at 07:44

Funny all these youngsters that only ever used Usenet for downloading binaries!

Slack and discord are built on IRC afaik, it was the original realtime group text chat protocol.

I used to run up huge phone bills loitering on IRCnet, the Quakenet talking to randoms, back in the late 90s.

I imagine there are still some holdouts of tech groups that are still active.