What Usenet Provider

[ZeroC00l]

Are you guys using? I have been with Giganews for a very very long time. It's been great for the most part. But as some of you may well know, it's also expensive. Is there another provider you recommended that's just as good if not better then Giganews? I get VyprVPN with them which is quite nice, but I bought a lifetime membership with VPN Unlimited.

Thanks.....

ZeroC00l

[RiverRapids]

I currently like Frugal News. Very cheap, very fast, IPv6, servers in US and Europe, only has 1000 days retention, but that's good for most things. Maybe a Blocknews block account for anything older.

[nQQ]

It depends on what you want I used Astraweb for years but the last couple they suffered quite a lot of takedowns. I mainly use block accounts in the last couple of years and so often see who has mega deals. Will look at blocknews

[carto0]

I uses sunnyusenet; about 36€ per year for a 20Mb subscription with 2000 days of retention.

[RiverRapids]

It depends on what you want I used Astraweb for years but the last couple they suffered quite a lot of takedowns. I mainly use block accounts in the last couple of years and so often see who has mega deals. Will look at blocknews

I used to like AstraWeb, but their completion can be very flaky. I think they have some peering issues, and it's not something they've been willing to fix for the last couple of years. Given there are other providers with cheaper block accounts or cheaper subscriptions and no completion problems, then Astraweb looks less attractive than it used to be.

[nQQ]

It depends on what you want I used Astraweb for years but the last couple they suffered quite a lot of takedowns. I mainly use block accounts in the last couple of years and so often see who has mega deals. Will look at blocknews

I used to like AstraWeb, but their completion can be very flaky. I think they have some peering issues, and it's not something they've been willing to fix for the last couple of years. Given there are other providers with cheaper block accounts or cheaper subscriptions and no completion problems, then Astraweb looks less attractive than it used to be.

True but they did a block deal for silly money a few years ago, something like 1TB for $10 that I'm still working through them as I bought a few. I do have a couple of back up servers because they went through a period of aggressive takedown, though that does now seemed to have lessened. Who has cheap blocks now with decent completion.

[RiverRapids]

I used to like AstraWeb, but their completion can be very flaky. I think they have some peering issues, and it's not something they've been willing to fix for the last couple of years. Given there are other providers with cheaper block accounts or cheaper subscriptions and no completion problems, then Astraweb looks less attractive than it used to be.

True but they did a block deal for silly money a few years ago, something like 1TB for $10 that I'm still working through them as I bought a few. I do have a couple of back up servers because they went through a period of aggressive takedown, though that does now seemed to have lessened. Who has cheap blocks now with decent completion.

$10 must have been quite a while back! You have to look for deals I guess (Blocknews did 500GB for $20 at the beginning of the year), but then some people can get through a terabyte in a month, so it would work out cheaper to go to someone like FrugalNews and have unlimited download for a year. Especially if you run into Astraweb's completion issues and then need another Usenet provider to fill the gaps anyway.

I was a long time Astraweb user, and despite their good prices, the annoying completion issues meant I moved to somewhere cheaper that doesn't have those problems.

[nQQ]

Yes, almost a decade ago, moved from monthly to block since my requirements changed and I no longer needed the volume.

[Beck38]

For many years I mainly used astra, since their US plant was on the west coast and pulling (or pushing) things across the country was more problematic than the vagarities of astras continual problems; I kept a smallish giga account as a first fills, along with blocknews (both of whose server plants are in eastern Virginia in the Tysons Corner area or thereabouts.

Anyway, finally got my fill of astra screwups about three years ago and decided spending $10 more or so a month was worth it if the cross-country lines were solid. Now, there are some that arn't, but as I use a vpn service (independent) I'll can 'wiggle' things around to get different transcontinental data transmission lines, and if one starts getting flacky, I can switch to another. In fact, I had been using Comcasts backbone to go west to east up until about 3 weeks ago, and then they started messing up snd it wasn't improving, so I switched to cogentco, and it's running just fine. Will continue to monitor and stay with them as long as they provide solid speeds and few if any dropouts.

[nQQ]

For many years I mainly used astra, since their US plant was on the west coast and pulling (or pushing) things across the country was more problematic than the vagarities of astras continual problems; I kept a smallish giga account as a first fills, along with blocknews (both of whose server plants are in eastern Virginia in the Tysons Corner area or thereabouts.

Anyway, finally got my fill of astra screwups about three years ago and decided spending $10 more or so a month was worth it if the cross-country lines were solid. Now, there are some that arn't, but as I use a vpn service (independent) I'll can 'wiggle' things around to get different transcontinental data transmission lines, and if one starts getting flacky, I can switch to another. In fact, I had been using Comcasts backbone to go west to east up until about 3 weeks ago, and then they started messing up snd it wasn't improving, so I switched to cogentco, and it's running just fine. Will continue to monitor and stay with them as long as they provide solid speeds and few if any dropouts.

Do you use a VPN mainly for NNTP or for other reasons? I can understand VPN for P2P but not sure there is much need for NNTP, unless uploading.