Are you frustrated that your ISP has blocked your access to newgroups? Do you miss being able to find the video, audio and image files you need?

More and more ISPs are dropping their usenet newsgroups or just censoring them. It’s really frustrating to see it happen.

It happened to me. Verizon stopped providing uncensored usenet service. Pissed me off. I don’t think they should be allowed to decide what people have access to, but they seem to get away with it.

Usenet Newsgroups should be uncensored newsgroups, so people can share information and content about topics they care about.

If you’ve been blocked or just want better service, then you should find a commercial Usenet service. I choose Giganews because it retains the most content and news. The service is fast and reliable. I have been so much happier since I choose Giganews.

Don’t know what Usenet is?

If you don’t know what Usenet is, it is the hidden treasure of the Internet. There are millions of people who get together every day to share news, chat and explore content on their favorite subjects. These people are organized into groups.

There are golf groups, cooking groups, gardening groups, groups for movie lovers, groups for classical music lovers, and there are lots of adult groups as well. There are thousands of groups devoted to literally thousands of categories.

Each of these groups is called a newsgroup, hence the name of this blog.

Think of Usenet as a big, unregulated, uncontrollable message board in the sky. With tons of messages and content on just about every subject you can imagine.

But these message boards are different than most other message boards on the internet.

The key difference with Usenet is that users can attach files to their messages. And since you can attach a file to a message you can, conceivably, attach many files to many messages. That’s what people do. These files are called binaries.

Binaries are video, audio and image files. You need a special newsreader to decode the binaries. I recommend BinTube. It works great for finding what you want, automatically decoding it and streaming it right away.

How do I Get to Usenet?

Before you can download messages and content on your favorite subject, you’ll need two things: access to a Usenet server and a newsreader.

To use Usenet you need access to a Usenet server. Your ISP might provide access, but most do not provide uncensored access. So, you need your own Usenet service. Some of the popular ones are Giganews, Power Usenet and News Hosting. I recommend Giganews because that’s what I used so I know first-hand that it’s excellent. It costs about $25-$29 per month for unlimited downloads. If you can live with something with less content and a bit slower, but need something a little cheaper try Power Usenet their prices are about $10 lower, but you give up some retention and some speed.

Second you will need a news reader. I find that I need two kinds of news readers. One for video and audio files and one for sending and receiving messages. I really like BinTube for video and audio. I use Outloook Express for messages.