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Usenet - anyone here use it?

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bingefeller

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 25, 2007
596
33
Northern Ireland
Hey guys, I was thinking of paying for a subscription to usenet, but not sure about it. Just wanted to get a few opinions here first.

Are there any good newsreaders out there for OS X?

If anyone does have a paid usenet subscription, what provider do you use?

I'd be interested in music discussion and some of the binary groups.....
 
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bingefeller

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 25, 2007
596
33
Northern Ireland
xlii said:
Been using the usenet since the early 80's when I used a news reader called vnews on DEC's VMS operating system. Back then usenet was pretty much the only game in town.

Now I use outlook express on XP. This link can give you some ideas on what is out there for OSX.

http://www.newsreaders.com/mac/clients.html
Click to expand...

What service do you use or does your ISP provide you with newsgroups? I'm on BT Internet and I don't think it gives you newsgroup access, if it doesnt it's very limited.
 
xlii

xlii

macrumors 68000
Sep 19, 2006
1,867
121
Millis, Massachusetts
I'm on comcast cable. It's part of the package they offer but one has to know about it to enable & use it. I think most users who started > 1995 don't even know about usenet. Just use it to read/post & download files. Mostly for old times sake. Brings me back to the old days.
 
B

bingefeller

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 25, 2007
596
33
Northern Ireland
king_leonidas said:
Best newsreader for mac is Unison.I use it a lot of years,no problems and frequently updates. For Usenet server i use about a year now NewsDemon good service and good prices;)
Click to expand...

Newdemon looks very good. I might sign up for six months and see how it goes. I was looking for a free newsreader though. Maybe Thunderbird?

Would my personal data be at risk when using newsgroups? I mean, I'd probably read more than I'd post, but would your IP address not be available to malicious users?
 
king_leonidas

king_leonidas

macrumors member
Jun 7, 2003
46
7
GREECE
bingefeller said:
Newdemon looks very good. I might sign up for six months and see how it goes. I was looking for a free newsreader though. Maybe Thunderbird?

Would my personal data be at risk when using newsgroups? I mean, I'd probably read more than I'd post, but would your IP address not be available to malicious users?
Click to expand...

For free newsreader on mac use MT-NewsWatcher X
I use newsgroups for years since Mac OS 9 and i never had problems until now with my personal data from malicious users. There are sometimes virus,trojans etc at binary files but these are only for windows users not for us.You will be absolutely safe with Mac OS from these thinks, don't worry!;)
 
notjustjay

notjustjay

macrumors 603
Sep 19, 2003
6,056
167
Canada, eh?
Was a day you wouldn't catch me without a telnet or ssh session open to a Unix host running the "tin" newsreader. We have a local computer-related forsale group that was much better than any web classified listing, craigslist or eBay. But now I find I don't use it anymore, in fact I haven't even logged in in months.

I used my old Unix shell account from my university days, so it was all free. I wouldn't bother paying for Usenet access anymore, when Google Groups does most of what you want for free.

Unless you wanted to be a binaries leech (now that's a whole other story).
 
B

bingefeller

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 25, 2007
596
33
Northern Ireland
notjustjay said:
Was a day you wouldn't catch me without a telnet or ssh session open to a Unix host running the "tin" newsreader. We have a local computer-related forsale group that was much better than any web classified listing, craigslist or eBay. But now I find I don't use it anymore, in fact I haven't even logged in in months.

I used my old Unix shell account from my university days, so it was all free. I wouldn't bother paying for Usenet access anymore, when Google Groups does most of what you want for free.

Unless you wanted to be a binaries leech (now that's a whole other story).
Click to expand...

Yeah, I actually do want to be a binaries leech. Could you give me some info on this? Is the best way to pay or are there any good free servers out there? I remember finding a good free server years ago....



MacsRgr8 said:
Another vote for Unison.

My ISP has its own newsgroup access, so I use that a lot. :)

BTW, you'll probably be needing MacPAR and Split&Concat for extracting the binaries. ;)
Click to expand...


Thanks for the links ;)
 
notjustjay

notjustjay

macrumors 603
Sep 19, 2003
6,056
167
Canada, eh?
bingefeller said:
Yeah, I actually do want to be a binaries leech. Could you give me some info on this? Is the best way to pay or are there any good free servers out there? I remember finding a good free server years ago....
Click to expand...

Don't know how good the free ones are nowadays. The one I used for a while was GigaNews. You can pay them directly for access, or (as in my case) the ISP I was with simply aliased their own news URL to a GigaNews server. I don't use that ISP anymore. My current one (Rogers Cable, here in Canada) might actually do the same, but I haven't bothered to set it up yet.

iGrabNews is a good binaries-centric Mac newsreader :) A little slow, a little buggy, but does the job.
 
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balwx

macrumors regular
Aug 22, 2007
141
0
Been using Usenet since around 1991 or 1992. Started with Altopia, now using Giganews. I'd say its a decent deal if you have a high speed connection. Virus protection should be used also, things have come a long way since I started on usenet. Cant comment on mac software, but I use Agent.

http://www.forteinc.com/main/homepage.php

This is a program that has long been a must have program for usenet. Within the past 10 years or so, there are many others. I'm sure some are easier to use, better interface, but this has worked for me for a long long time. Good luck
 
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