Frequently
Asked Questions
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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:
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.
- Free Agent
This is one of the most popular news readers
available for free. It is fairly simple to
configure and does not hide files on your PC that
can be used to determine where you have been
reading news (or what you have been reading).
Download Free Agent
- AnonPost AnonPost provides one of the easiest
ways to post your articles anonymously to
newsgroups. It is user friendly and fairly
straight forward. Setup is self explanatory.
Download AnonPost
- News Express News express is a free newsreader that
can be fully configured. It displays images
within the program. It is small and therefore can
be run from a a zip disk to eliminate any traces
of newsgroup activity on your hard drive. News
express uses a single window for navigating and
opens articles in a seperate window.
Download News Express
- News Rover Using News Rover, you can automatically
download all of the articles in a specified group
or groups at a pre-set time (such as overnight).
News Rover will download all articles and
attachments and decode files automatically if
setup to. It also handles multi-part attachements
and sorts and decodes them so you can view them
offline. News Rover is AOL compatible.
Download News Rover
- Apicviewer Apicviewer is a freeware program. It
automatically downloads pictures, videos and
sound files from UseNet newsgroups. I have never
used it, but it was rated 4stars by ZDnet.
Download Apicviewer