Pudentame wrote:

John McWilliams wrote:

A few folks have asked how to avoid posting from Google, and I want to
post here so others can benefit and still others give more info.

There are dozens of news clients, and I happen to use Thunderbird.
Price is right (0), it's easy to set up and use, and it also does
mail. It's cross platform, so Windows users migrating to Mac or vice
versa will have a program they're familiar with. Please don't turn
this into xyz is crap, you should use abc. The point is to get started.

Now, news servers vary widely, and most ISPs keep theirs under wraps
as they'd prefer to not offer the service at all. First step might be
to comb your ISP's web pages for News groups, usenet, or any other
invented term they might use. Or call. Ask them to walk you through
the whole thing, or follow directions on web page.

You'll be glad you did.


It's also called "Usenet". Your ISP's help-desk should be able to tell
you what it is. It's one of the questions they'll actually have a script
for. It may even be in their FAQ.

Probably not enough info in the FAQ as they'd rather make you work to
find it. Some tech support people won't even know what you are asking
for. Ask about the "News Server".

Often the news server will be named, quell surprise, "NEWS"; as in

"news.isp_name.net" 0r "news.isp_name.com"


other names "smtp-server.isp_name.com"

http:// (web)
https:// (web (secure))
smtp:// (mail)
ftp:// (file transfer)
nntp:// (news)

"tp" means Transfer Protocol

You may have to log on to your ISPs news server the same as you logon to
your email account.

Yep, call & ask for the name of the news server, like:
"news2.myprovider.net" and ask what login & password to use, probably
the same as your email but ask clearly if it should be "paul" or
" or ". Set it up so the
login & password is saved, not anonymous. They change this stuff
periodically too, maybe adding a west coast news server or changing the
passwords... Then you can sort by user name, date, threads with unread
messages, mark threads ignored, filter trolls out & all kinds of good
stuff. It'll look just like another email account, like outlook/outlook
express/thunderbird/mozilla, not web based like yahoo, google groups or
gmail. Set it up by adding a new account of the type: "news" not "mail".