I am not familiar with all the in and out. I used to get usenet on an outlook client on my win dows computer. That gotg stopped. I found uk diy on google, logged in. Now that is stopping? So I need a " Cleint" or to go to a web site BUT I have done that and I simply cannot find the groups ( this one and Uk gardening are the only ones I use) on the web page. I need a simple page I can go to and download some reader for windows 11 or a simple reader. I do not have a smart phone, apple or gadgetry. Stop telling me ( like goggle tos is) thagt there are many. Name a good one and a simple one to use. Thanks.
A couple of questions first. What operating system are you using? I assume it's Windows, but which one - 10, 11 or an earlier one? Secondly, what programme do you currently use to send emails? If you use Thunderbird, you already have a client which can access Usenet.
There are a number of Usenet providers who give you access without having to sign up with them. Some require a sign up even though they do not charge for an account with them. It is usually advisable to go with one of these (such as eternal-september or solani), as those who do not require an account and are free are often blocked by other providers because of use by spammers. Those who charge usually have only a very nominal fee, and are said to provide better spam blocking and other facilities.
I have windows 11 on this computer. I tried Eternal September but it took me nowhere finding any groups. I also have a Thunderbird e mail client which it says has newgroups on it. But I tried setting it up . It requres far too much information I do not have - like group protocol numbers .
10 Euros/annum and Thunderbird as the news reader.
Does the following help with setting up newsgroups?
formatting link
It's for an earlier version of TB and with news.individual.net as the usenet provider but the instructions are valid for another usenet provider such as Eternal September.
The provider should have a list of newsgroups that are downloaded and you select from the list rather than needing protocol numbers
In Thunderbird RIGHT click news.eternal-september.org. Select Settings in the menu which appears. A new page will appear. Under news.eternal-september.org select Server Settings. Another new page will appear. Make sure "Always request authentification when connecting to this server" is checked.
Go back to the main page and RIGHT click news.eternal-september.org again. This time select Subscribe. You will be asked for the user name and password you used to register with Eternal September. After you've done this a complete list of newsgroups should appear.
ok win 11 and thunderbird will do what you need. Setting up should be fairly straight forward - but depending on which server you use there may be a couple of settings changes that are needed.
I am currently using eternal september, so will take you step by step what you would need to use that. I will assume you are using a recent version of thunderbird:
1) Go to
formatting link
and register for a free account.
2) In Thunderbird, click on the "hamburger" menu at the top right and then New Account -> Newsgroup
3) Enter your name and email address as you want it to be shown in the groups. Click Next
4) Enter the newsgroup server name: news-eternal-september.org then click next
5) Enter the name of the account as you want it shown in thunderbird - the default is just the name of the server and that is probably fine. Click next. That will almost complete the setup.
You should now see an entry for a news server account on the left hand panel. Right click on that and and choose "Settings". side panel on the left, under the usenet server entry click "Server Settings" and tick the box that says "Always request authentication when connecting to this server". When you access the server for the first time, it will then ask for the username and password you used when creating your account in ES.
That completes the setup
Now subscribe to the groups you want:
Right click on the server entry on the left, and select Subscribe. It may show a list of groups, but if not hit the refresh button. Search for the groups you want, and tick the box. Click ok when done.
For more information on things like filtering and setting up kill files etc, see:
Until you mentioned it, I had not noticed that :-)
(for anyone not reading the subtext, CTRL+U in thunderbird will show the raw text of a newsgroup or email message. That in the case of usenet postings includes the "User-Agent" string that identifies the software of the program that poster used to post.
Historically it would have said something fairly comprehensive such as:
"User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:102.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/102.13.0"
Telling you the exact version of the software, the version of the Firefox HTML render engine it was based on, and what OS it is running on.
Current versions however just include "User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird")
Eternal September is still free, Individual.net is very cheap. This is posted via Eternal September.
What is basically going on I think is ISPs are coming out of newsgroups and indeed email provision, as they just want to be providers of the connection. I can see an opening here for third parties to make some money by providing services like this. I would not suggest a newsreader as I'm not up in them, but Thunderbird does email and news, which is probably the way I'm going. Brian
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