What is Usenet?
Most of us travel the web via our browsers without knowing about a hidden treasure of media files that exists on a parallel internet called USENET.
Usenet was originally designed to carry local news between two universities in North Carolina. For this reason, Usenet groups are often referred to as NEWSGROUPS, even though, today, they are used as public forums for discussions.
USENET is made up of discussion groups called newsgroups on just about every topic you can imagine. These groups share more than conversation, they share media files. Video, audio, pictures and many other forms of media are posted daily into these groups. The media files are called binaries. They are called binaries because they are files that only computers can read them right off Usenet.
Each Usenet group has a unique name. The name consists of two or more parts, separated by periods. For example, here are the names of several groups:
- alt.binaries.games.golf
- biz.marketplace.international
- k12.news
- news.newusers.questions
- rec.sport.golf
- sci.chem
- soc.women
- uk.sport.golf
When you look at the name of a group, the first part of the name is the hierarchy. For example, the news hierarchy contains groups in which people discuss Usenet itself. The talk hierarchy is for debate.
The 13 most important Usenet hierarchies
- alt – Wide variety of miscellaneous topics
- bionet – Biology
- bit – Miscellaneous (from Bitnet mailing lists)
- biz – Business, marketing, advertising
- comp – Computers
- humanities – Literature, fine arts
- k12 – Kindergarten through high school
- misc – Miscellaneous
- news – Usenet itself
- rec – Recreation, hobbies, arts
- sci – Science and technology
- soc – Social and cultural issues
- talk – Debate, controversial topics
When you use a newsreader program like Outlook Express, you tell it which group you want to look at. The newsreader then fetches the articles and displays them for you. If you decide to post (send out) an article of your own, you can use your newsreader to compose the message and send it to the appropriate group.
If your ISP does not provide access to newsgroups or if you are not satisfied with the quality of the service. Then you should try a commercial service which have unlimited downloads for a small monthly fee.
The solution is to get yourself a Usenet newsreader program and subscribe to a high-quality news service. We recommend Giganews. It’s the service we use. There is a small monthly charge, but it is worth it. They even have a free trial.
Related Posts: