Frequently Asked Questions

  1. Q. Why is my news server on this list?
    A.
    The databases for this page are automatically created by gathering information from pages all over the Internet. If your news server is listed here, you are on someones list. To get off my list, send me an email which includes the name of your server and a request to be removed.
  2. Q. What is this?
    A. This is a web page which lists UseNet News Servers on the Internet that allow public access to their news.
  3. Q. How does it work?
    A. The database for this page is created using a custom Perl script. The script downloads lists from many of the other web pages on the net that list free servers. It then puts any new news servers from these lists into my database. Then it downloads the active list for the oldest machines first, and updates the information in the database for that server.
  4. Q. How often is this page updated.
    A. The Perl script is run every hour (at 13 minutes after the hour for those of you who are REALLY concerned). The script is currently only allowed to run for at most 20 minutes to save some of my bandwidth. No server is checked less than 24 hours after it's previous update.
  5. Q. Why can't I find a group when I

know that it exists and I know that I typed the name correctly?
A. At the moment I am not indexing most of the non-english language or specialty groups. The list of groups I am indexing is listed below:
alt, comp, misc, news, rec, sci, soc, sybase, talk, webring
If there is some hierarchy that you really want I might consider adding it but I don't plan to index the non-english groups. Q. What is your table of servers showing?
A. The table lists each machine, total groups on the server, total articles on the server in indexed hierarchies, how many new groups have been created since the last check, and how many news articles it has received. Q. Why do some of the servers show the same number of total groups and new groups?
A. If this is the first time that a server has been placed in the database, there is no previous total to count from. This causes the new counts to be artificially inflated from 0 to the current amount. Q. Is this all of the free news servers out there?
A. Not even close. There are probably hundreds (or even thousands) more that I don't have in my list. Including some which occassionally ask me to not list them. I always honor such requests. Q. I can't get to news.foo.com anymore. Why?
A. New servers are being put up, and old ones are getting shut down. Quite often, when a new server is set up, the person that is doing the work is not very familiar with how these servers operate. If they don't block outside access, it might be listed in my list. When they discover their mistake, they close down the free access. Q. What other pages do you search for your list.
A. I am currently harvesting the following pages:

Page Next Visit After Status Servers
http://www.newsservers.net/servers.htm 2000-02-10 23:28:43 200 62
http://home1.gte.net/docthomp/servers.htm 2000-02-11 13:21:12 200 435
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Studios/9594/public.htm 2000-02-11 20:13:35 200 35
http://www.freenntp.com/servers.htm 2000-02-11 21:13:31 200 36
http://www.feist.com/~pranav/freenntp.html 2000-02-11 22:23:48 200 911
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Byte/7126/nopost.html 2000-02-11 23:41:08 200 13
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Byte/7126/posting.html 2000-02-12 00:13:54 200 32
http://www.pilum.net/cgi-bin/nlist.cgi?sort=Groupcount 2000-02-12 02:16:27 200 50
http://www.jammed.com/~newzbot/sorted-group-table.html 2000-02-12 04:26:39 200 381
http://www.gj.net/~bhkraft/ 2000-02-12 23:15:46 200 95
http://frameister.virtualave.net/cgi-bin/nlist/ns_view.pl 2000-02-13 00:14:07 200 43
http://www.halcyon.com/machey/hunter.html 2000-02-13 01:17:08 200 304
http://www.pilum.net/cgi-bin/nlist.cgi?sort=Speed 2000-02-15 02:13:12 500 50
http://www.freenntp.com/complete.htm 2000-02-15 08:14:38 500 48
  • Q. How can I read groups or use specific servers after I locate them.
    A. It sort of depends based on your browser and personal preferences. If you are using Netscape and have Collabra installed you should have everything that you need to read news, if it doesn't work check out
    these instructions. The same is true if you have Microsoft Outlook Express installed with IE, if it doesn't work check out these instructions. Of course, even though you have software capable of reading news, that doesn't mean that you will like it, so I have also created the following list of references to other (Windows) software that some people have recommmended to me in the past. Also, if you are using AOL you NEED this list. AOL has decided that they are a better judge of what is fit for you to read than you are and towards that end they censor groups, pre-configure their software to only read their "approved" newsgroups, etc.