Finding a Free Usenet Server

Usenet is a bit less known than it should be, given the capabilities of this technology. There are literally thousands of newsgroups available on Usenet and file sharing capabilities are excellent. If you are debating getting one of the paid versions of this service, you can try a free service first, just to get your feet wet. These services will obviously not be quite as powerful as paid versions, but they give a glimpse of what this service can offer and why it's never really gone out of style.

You need a newsreader to read Usenet newsgroups. There are several different types available, and many of them free. They work just as an e-mail reader. As is the case with your mail reader, you will be prompted for server information when you first start the program. It's pretty straightforward. Server name is generally something like news.servername.com. Once you're hooked up, it allows you to download all posts. It is not advisable as there are literally millions of posts archived on some news servers. What you want to do is find a particular group, pique your interest.

A newsgroup is the Usenet parlance for what is essentially similar to a forum. These are collections of posts that are related to a specific topic or area of interest. It is considered bad etiquette to go off-topic in these newsgroups, so you do not log on to a physics group and start asking about how to use Usenet services. There are beginner's news groups, and participants are very helpful to newcomers. Like the players and some other niche groups online, Usenet aficionados usually very excited to get more people interested in the service and what it can do for them.

There are numerous free servers, but be aware that many of them will be severely limited in their capacity and speed. They provide a way but for you to test the product before you buy it. You may also be able to access your server via your ISP using your username and password on all computers. Be sure to check. If you liked the free service offer are mainly the companies are betting that you want, you can upgrade to a paid service that offers more power and faster download speeds later.