This guide will be a walk through on how to use usenet.

What is Usenet ?

Usenet is basically is a worldwide distributed internet discussion system containing wealth of information. It is basically based on client server architecture. Usenet information is spread across many servers across the world or internet so there is no central entity in managing it. It was heavily dominant before the existence and being of web and still provides knowledge not easily accessible through web. It is likely that you have not heard about it because web is now dominant and usenet is an obscure entity. But usenet is still the place where you can find consummate knowledge articles.

Usenet guide

1. Installing a client:

There are many usenet clients available on the net installing a client is necessary because it lets you view the messages in newsgroup and download them from a Usenet server. As usenet is a client server based entity so installing a client is neccessary.

Following list contains a number of usenet clients you can download anyone of them:

  • Bnr2 ( Binary News Reaper) : It is a freeware and is basically tailored for reading articles from alt.binaries.* group.
  • Xnews: It is a freeware client.Xnews features a quick filter, a score file for more advanced filtering, support for multiple servers and identities, binaries handling, optional header and article caching, and folders for permanent archival.
  • Newsbin: It is not a freeware.It is used for downloading files from newsgroups. Also it automatically combines complicated multi-part binary posts to create one file.
  • Grabit: It is a freeware but it's search feature is paid. One can download the content without having to download entire headers. It boast of a feature to automatically repair and extract of downloaded binaries.
2. Getting a Usenet Server:

It is the place from where you can download the usenet content i.e the content from the newsgroups.

I mention here a site that contains a list of free Usenet servers you can go to this site and choose the server you want.It is to be noted that only the servers in white text are active at any instant of time. This site maintains and updates a list of public news servers everyday.

Visit www.disenter.com for server list.

3. Usenet Search Engines:

This is a place where you can search for keywords across numerous newgroups and they provide nzb support. Nzb file contains details of the item to be downloaded, to make it more clear think of nzb file as a torrent and usenet client as the client that downloads that file for you.

Here's the list of usenet search engines:
This guide just provides you with basic information that you would need to get started with usenet. If you encounter any problem with client setup or any other query then post your comment.