Hi all, I am casting about for a new Usenet provider because Supernews is falling down on the job lately as far as retention goes.
Basically, the plan would be to have my main provider be one with something close to 3000 days retention, and a second non-expiring block account that feeds off a different Tier 1 service in case the first one missed something.
Out of the ones indicated on the Usenet subreddit, newsgroupdirect.com looks promising for the first. Experiences with it or others?
Thanks for noticing the typo. I was actually going from memory there. And today’s Usenet isn’t mostly used for what we used it for back in the day (namely discussions)*, before The Spammening came. Now it’s mostly binaries groups.
*I first discovered Usenet in the days when I still had to make my way to my old college’s terminal rooms (what a quaint concept for anyone under 40) to use actual DEC VT100s to access the college computer, ca. 1990.
Thanks, Brian. They’re a Highwinds reseller, I believe. I ended up going with the guys I linked to (also Highwinds) because right now they have a too good to pass up 4 dollar a month deal if you go through the referrer link on Reddit (40 if you commit to a year, but I didn’t want to). No VPN at that price but great retention, SSL, “unlimited”, 50 concurrent connections, etc. Going to see how it goes for a month, maybe upgrade later.
Sure thing. Now I have to find a block account that’s NOT under the Highwinds umbrella, preferably with similar retention, but that might be a tall order.
Usually when stuff gets removed from usenet they only hit a few pieces. The pieces will often be different on a different provider, but only if they aren’t just reselling the same base service.
In the rare case that one’s principal provider misses something. The nice thing about block accounts is that the bandwidth doesn’t expire (well, unless the company bites the dust) . You want one that feeds off a different Tier 1 service for that reason.
For instance, recently I tried downloading something that was only a year old from my main and soon to be ex-provider Supernews. No go, all busted and incomplete. So I turned to my blocknews account et voilà problem solved.
In the case I just described I don’t even think it was a takedown thing, though, because blocknews would have been affected as well. I think Supernews is just getting fat and lazy because it’s the default option for many. Their retention isn’t even what they claim (1100 days) anymore.
Not as many as back in the day, because of The Spammening of course. Also because ISPs no longer offer Usenet access of any kind. Is Google Groups still a thing?