Best newsgroups provider for someone new to usenet..

[gmcbpi]

Hello, I would like to try out usenet and the newsgroups etc... I was wondering which provider was the best out of the ones advertised here or ones that you guys think are good.

[Beck38]

Your title is a bit off, you mean 'news-server' not newsgroup.

But it basically comes down to three:

Giganews - very expensive, very solid. You tend to get what you pay for, but that doesn't mean that they don't sometimes run off the rails, so to speak.

Astraweb - very inexpensive, runs off those rails a lot more (skips and such), but has been getting better and better over the last couple of years.

Usenet-News - king of the third party providers. Very solid, if one goes with Astraweb they are the best for 'fills'

I'm sure everyone has a favorite from the tiers below these three, but it comes down to speed, connections, completions, and retention, and all three of these are within a couple of percent of each other.

FYI, only Astraweb and Usenet-News do 'block' accounts, 'pay as you go', with blocks that never get 'old', or 'roll off'. Giganews hasn't done blocks in at least 15 years, their accounts are more time/transfer rate based.

If you want to dip your toes in, a block account is the way to go.

[gmcbpi]

I'm up to trying astraweb but do you know if supernews is any good?

[c0ld]

I'm up to trying astraweb but do you know if supernews is any good?

Supernews is just a giganews company with reduced retention. It's not value for money when compared to astrawebs kleverig deal (but then, nothing is really).

[gmcbpi]

Ahh thanks, I'll just go with the kleverig deal.

[hdjunky]

FYI, only Astraweb and Usenet-News do 'block' accounts, 'pay as you go', with blocks that never get 'old', or 'roll off'.

No, there is also Blocknews as well and at the beginning of this year was the go-to provider to use when astraweb had there big eff up and usenet-news / highwinds was not much better. There was a big thread about it on the matrix. The prices are also better than usenetnews now too.

for the first poster unless you know how much you will use or download a block account may be better, or at least until you get into it more. You figure if you can make a blocknews account last for 3 months at least you are down to about 8 bucks a month already.

[ericab]

word of advice:

stay away from astraweb.

their heyday is over.

look into supernews; or usenetnow

[zot]

The first thing everyone should do is find out if your ISP offers free usenet. Although most American ISPs dropped Usenet in the past few years (due mainly to childporn worries) there are still a few that offer complimentary usenet access. The better ones will typically "resell" a premium service such as Giganews, Highwinds, or Astraweb.

stay away from astraweb.

Is there some reason to avoid Astraweb? I don't know any. Astraweb had a spell of completion problems back in January, which they fixed in a few weeks, and some people (like myself) who set up block-account fill-servers probably never noticed any problem.

I think most people would agree that Astraweb is one of the best values for the money.

[bonkers]

no problems with astraweb here price very good and service no complaints at the moment

[c0ld]

no problems with astraweb

Same. I regularly download several hundred gb a month and the only time I ever have a problem, it is also reflected by completion problems on index sites too, so the problem is usually caused by a failed upload.

They get less takedowns than supernews/giganews too (ie you'll see lots of people complaining that none of the articles exist). I sometimes need to check other peoples comments about unrepairable reports on newzbin by downloading it myself to check it. Most of the time it turns out to be a problem with their provider.

Add to that the fact that most of the regular scene uploaders post to an astraweb account, so astraweb get it first hand, while others get it after its been passed around the net a few times.