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Comment on What’s Usenet and how can I access it with modern hardware (phones/laptops)?

kinttach@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

It’s an old federated message board system. Message boards are called “newsgroups “. It predates the web so it’s usually accessed via a special client app. To use it you’d need:

A Usenet client app, called a newsreader. See Wikipedia. Many are probably abandoned by now.
An account with a Usenet provider. A search engine will point you to several options. There used to be some free ones. If there still are, it would be a good way to try it out. But note that the free ones often don’t carry all of the newsgroups — they omit the binary groups, which are known to carry pirated software and, let’s say, diverse video content.

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MossyFeathers@pawb.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It’s federated? Okay, that makes a lot more sense. I thought usenet providers were like isps, connecting to a single, central host or something. I didn’t realize they were federated systems.

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- kender242@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  It’s really neat to think of Usenet as ‘federated’ considering that’s a new term for most of us.
  
  My preferred options are: Binsearch, astraweb, and newsbin
  
  You get what you pay for, a bargain IMHO
  
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  - TunaLobster@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Check out FidoNet for another example of federation.
    
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- damnthefilibuster@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  If I recall correctly, ISPs were often running their own Usenet servers. This meant that traffic didn’t leave their networks and thus they paid less network interchange fees.
  
  These days maybe only niche ISPs in some parts of the world might be running Usenet servers. Majority of them are run by specific companies created specifically for the purpose.
  
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- pragmakist@kbin.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Heh. I used to run leafnode as my own, in house, single peerson server.
  
  I'm quite surprised to find out it's still alive and maintained.
  
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CannedTuna@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’d add to this and say you need:

A Usenet client such as SabNZBD (like qbittorrent or similar downloading client, but for Usenet)

A Usenet provider such as Astraweb, Newshosting, UsenetServer, Easynews, etc (or a paid subscription giving you access to a number of servers, kind of like a private torrent site)

And a tracker or indexer such as NZBGeek, NZB Finder, omgwtfnzbs, DrunkenSlug, etc (similar to a library index that helps you find what you want in the sea of information)

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