Newsgroup servers

Being on Long Island, many of us gain Internet access through
Cablevisions Optimum Online. I've been noticing that various
newsgroups have been falling off.

About a year ago, I was going to switch to the fiber optic FIOS, by
Verizon. One reason I did not was because Cablevision had 120,000
newsgroups and Verizon had only about 40,000.

Today, I see that Cablevision has dropped to 51,000 and I don't
believe they just dropped foreign or far away local spots.

I wonder if any of you have found your newsgroups diminishing and what
are the total newsgroups your server/provider offers (and the name of
the serve too).

On Fri, 01 Dec 2006 11:52:44 -0500, Alan wrote:

Being on Long Island, many of us gain Internet access through
Cablevisions Optimum Online. I've been noticing that various
newsgroups have been falling off.

About a year ago, I was going to switch to the fiber optic FIOS, by
Verizon. One reason I did not was because Cablevision had 120,000
newsgroups and Verizon had only about 40,000.

Today, I see that Cablevision has dropped to 51,000 and I don't
believe they just dropped foreign or far away local spots.

I wonder if any of you have found your newsgroups diminishing and what
are the total newsgroups your server/provider offers (and the name of
the serve too).

A lot of us have given up on ISP news service and gone to a third-party
provider. I use newsguy.com, a lot of folks use individual.net, which used
to be free and is now cheap, some folks I know have started using
free.teranews.com, which has restricted bandwidth (50 MB/day, plenty for
text but not so good for binaries) but is free.

Newsguy is carrying over 43,000 newsgroups at the moment, not sure about
the other two. Individual.net doesn't carry binary groups, Teranews
claims to carry _all_ groups but doesn't give a number.

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

Alan wrote:
Being on Long Island, many of us gain Internet access through
Cablevisions Optimum Online. I've been noticing that various
newsgroups have been falling off.

About a year ago, I was going to switch to the fiber optic FIOS, by
Verizon. One reason I did not was because Cablevision had 120,000
newsgroups and Verizon had only about 40,000.

Today, I see that Cablevision has dropped to 51,000 and I don't
believe they just dropped foreign or far away local spots.

I wonder if any of you have found your newsgroups diminishing and what
are the total newsgroups your server/provider offers (and the name of
the serve too).

Most if not all ISP's have or are going to drop newsfeeds - why escapes
me, as they are getting paid by subscribers who signed up when newsfeeds
were part of the deal. My own ISP just up and dropped news with about a
weeks warning, but no reduction in the charges, so it amounts to a
reduction in service with no commensurate fee drop.

I surfed around and found teranews with their free 50MB daily, which I
can live with quite well, and if somebody wants more than that you can
subscribe a few dollars monthly for greater access. My news client does
not tell me how many groups there are.

I think the gradual tightening up and reduction in the numbers of groups
available is due at least in part to increasing pressure on
pornographic, particularly child and teen porn groups, which are being
closed down for fear of prosecution - witness the government in USA
attempting to get access to Google and other sites for the purpose of
finding people who search for illegal images.

Other groups probably just fade away for lack of posters. Of the tens
of thousands of groups available, only a comparative handful are really
active.

Colin D

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

Alan wrote:

About a year ago, I was going to switch to the fiber optic FIOS, by
Verizon. One reason I did not was because Cablevision had 120,000
newsgroups and Verizon had only about 40,000.

There aren't even 40,000 newsgroups. The rest are just bogus, misspelled,
or total nonsense.

Don't be fooled by marketing nonsense. Some providers put a load of crap
into their group lists just so they can cite a larger number than the
other guy -- and you end up having to wade through the crap to get to the
actual, active groups.

--
Jeremy |

On Fri, 01 Dec 2006 11:52:44 -0500, Alan wrote:

Being on Long Island, many of us gain Internet access through
Cablevisions Optimum Online. I've been noticing that various
newsgroups have been falling off.

About a year ago, I was going to switch to the fiber optic FIOS, by
Verizon. One reason I did not was because Cablevision had 120,000
newsgroups and Verizon had only about 40,000.

Today, I see that Cablevision has dropped to 51,000 and I don't
believe they just dropped foreign or far away local spots.

I wonder if any of you have found your newsgroups diminishing and what
are the total newsgroups your server/provider offers (and the name of
the serve too).


NOBODY uses their ISP news anymore, they subscribe to an independent.

I use Forte's news server, it costs only $6 a month for 20 G bytes! And it has
hundreds of thousands of groups.

And they keep messages a long time... EG the oldest in this group right now is
July 2005 !

Also, if you like movies and mp3s, almost all multi-part messages are intact.

The other day I clicked on a vintage movie group and it said "980,000 new
messages". I clicked cancel 'cause that would take 10 minutes!

wrote:


NOBODY uses their ISP news anymore, they subscribe to an independent.

Uh, hmmm, WRONG!

What you need is a decent ISP. There are some around.

--
--- Paul J. Gans

According to J. Clarke :
On Fri, 01 Dec 2006 11:52:44 -0500, Alan wrote:

[ ... ]

I wonder if any of you have found your newsgroups diminishing and what
are the total newsgroups your server/provider offers (and the name of
the serve too).

A lot of us have given up on ISP news service and gone to a third-party
provider. I use newsguy.com, a lot of folks use individual.net, which used
to be free and is now cheap, some folks I know have started using
free.teranews.com, which has restricted bandwidth (50 MB/day, plenty for
text but not so good for binaries) but is free.

Newsguy is carrying over 43,000 newsgroups at the moment, not sure about
the other two. Individual.net doesn't carry binary groups, Teranews
claims to carry _all_ groups but doesn't give a number.

Actually -- according to today's download of the active file, it
is 42,359 groups.

I actually prefer running my own news server, but my previous
ISP killed their news servers -- and I changed ISPs for a significant
savings in connection costs. The new ISP's news server is pretty much
useless at present, so I'm using newsguy, too.

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

Alan wrote:
Being on Long Island, many of us gain Internet access through
Cablevisions Optimum Online. I've been noticing that various
newsgroups have been falling off.

About a year ago, I was going to switch to the fiber optic FIOS, by
Verizon. One reason I did not was because Cablevision had 120,000
newsgroups and Verizon had only about 40,000.

Today, I see that Cablevision has dropped to 51,000 and I don't
believe they just dropped foreign or far away local spots.

I wonder if any of you have found your newsgroups diminishing and what
are the total newsgroups your server/provider offers (and the name of
the serve too).

My ISP dropped their newsgroup server about a year ago. I think I was
the only one using it. I now subscribe to supernews. Of the 29,000+
groups, I only look at 4 groups so number of groups was irrelevant to
me. I was more concerned about quality of service from my provider. I
kept receiving the same post multiple times from the first provider I
tried - they were unable to fix the problem. Since then I've switched
to supernews with no problems. For me I worry about quality not
quantity. Who has time to read 51,000 news groups? ... unless you are
into spamming.

--

Len

wrote:
On Fri, 01 Dec 2006 11:52:44 -0500, Alan wrote:

Being on Long Island, many of us gain Internet access through
Cablevisions Optimum Online. I've been noticing that various
newsgroups have been falling off.

About a year ago, I was going to switch to the fiber optic FIOS, by
Verizon. One reason I did not was because Cablevision had 120,000
newsgroups and Verizon had only about 40,000.

Today, I see that Cablevision has dropped to 51,000 and I don't
believe they just dropped foreign or far away local spots.

I wonder if any of you have found your newsgroups diminishing and what
are the total newsgroups your server/provider offers (and the name of
the serve too).


NOBODY uses their ISP news anymore, they subscribe to an independent.


Well, I'm glad DSLExtreme includes Supernews with their regular
accounts. If I had to pay I'd still go with Supernews.


Greg


--
"All my time I spent in heaven
Revelries of dance and wine
Waking to the sound of laughter
Up I'd rise and kiss the sky" - The Mekons

You might check out

nntp.aioe.org

A free news server. If all you want to do is READ, it may meet your needs.
They do have a posting limit--I believe it is 25 posts per day.

You can't argue with the price, though.


"l v" wrote in message
...
Alan wrote:
Being on Long Island, many of us gain Internet access through
Cablevisions Optimum Online. I've been noticing that various
newsgroups have been falling off.

About a year ago, I was going to switch to the fiber optic FIOS, by
Verizon. One reason I did not was because Cablevision had 120,000
newsgroups and Verizon had only about 40,000. Today, I see that
Cablevision has dropped to 51,000 and I don't
believe they just dropped foreign or far away local spots.

I wonder if any of you have found your newsgroups diminishing and what
are the total newsgroups your server/provider offers (and the name of
the serve too).

My ISP dropped their newsgroup server about a year ago. I think I was the
only one using it. I now subscribe to supernews. Of the 29,000+ groups,
I only look at 4 groups so number of groups was irrelevant to me. I was
more concerned about quality of service from my provider. I kept
receiving the same post multiple times from the first provider I tried -
they were unable to fix the problem. Since then I've switched to
supernews with no problems. For me I worry about quality not quantity.
Who has time to read 51,000 news groups? ... unless you are into
spamming.

--

Len