Usenet Servers Info

Giganews

admin — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 21:51:27 +0000

Giganews was one of the first to offer premium usenet service back in 1998 and have worn the crown of the most reliable usenet service since then. Their custom developed server software enables them to tweak every angle of their service and truly sets them above every other provider.

Key features of giganews also include two complete clusters in the US and Europe, an amazing backbone that can max out about any connection, and the highest retention in the industry. With currently 240 days, they are way beyond the competition. All this comes for a price though: The basic unlimited account will cost you 25$ / month. If you can afford it, the premium price is well worth it - But if you are on a tight budget, there are other providers offering slightly less for half the price.

Giganews Accelerator is a windows software freely available to all giganews customers that massively speeds up header downloads and transmits login data encrypted for all accounts. If you want full encryption of all data, you’ll have to pay 5$ extra due to the higher load this causes on their servers.

You can read learn more about Giganews here.

Hitnews

admin — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 16:26:57 +0000

Hitnews is a provider based in the Netherlands and is using the network and usenet storage services of xentech. This provider is not well known yet, and their crappy homepage certainly doesn’t make it look more professional either. But don’t let that misguide you, their service is actually very good. Their prices are below most other big providers (and it even gets cheaper if you pay for more than a month in advance), but their service clearly stands above the highwinds companies for European customers which heavily profit from their location.

They also offer free SSL service which work just as well as the regular system, whereas other providers with free SSL sometimes struggle with the additional load. Just as every other non-giganews provider, they do have some problems occasionally, but they immediately send out e-mails about all problems and are very quick at fixing them.

Ngroups.NET

admin — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 14:23:42 +0000

Ngroups.NET has been a round for a long time, just take a look at their website design. If anything, these guys know what they are doing. They continue to keep up with the retention competition, offer paypal as a payment method, multiple connections and SSL security. Recommended by many, but see what others have to say.

Power Usenet

admin — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 22:57:34 +0000

Powerusenet is a reseller of giganews, run completely virtual on the exact same infrastructure that giganews uses for their direct customers. This service is the perfect choice for user who demand perfect stability and speed, but can live with less retention than giganews offer. The major differences are a limited retention of 125 days and 6 connections, but thanks to giganews’ awesome backbone that should be more than enough to max out your connection. The basic account at powerusenet only costs 15$/month which should make this the favourite service for users who don’t need SSL and long retentions.

Just as giganews, powerusenet charges 5$/month extra for SSL access. If that is a key feature you are looking for, you should have a look at the providers offering this for free in their basic 15$/month plan such as astranews.

EasyNews

admin — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 23:48:27 +0000

Easynews was and still is considered to be one of the most reliable services. Back in the days before PAR2 was used, incomplete posts were a huge problem and easynews was the fill-server of choice for many.

Unfortunately, they are pretty useless for NNTP today due to their high prices, but one feature puts them above everyone else: They have an extremely powerful web-interface. While it might not be very user-friendly or pretty, they actually decode and extract pictures and videos on their webserver which lets you peek into this kind of media before downloading it. Although they also seem to belong to highwinds, most of their hardware is probably still running independently.

NewsDemon

admin — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 23:38:35 +0000

Newsdemon equipped with a new website and image, now offers a large variety of usenet accounts to meet anyone’s needs (around 20 at last count). With binary retention over 110 days, unlimited and small plans, and SSL encrypted connections, Newsdemon compete strongly with solid packages and realiable service.

Newsdemon offers 115 days of binary retention with their Premium plans and 100 days of binary retention with their Economy plans. Text retention tops 720 days.

UseNetServer

admin — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 12:11:36 +0000

Usenetserver is one of many providers affiliated with highwinds, a company offering usenet server software and bandwidth. It’s hard to get detailed inside information on what service is a pure virtual reseller, and what provider actually operates the servers themselves. Our current assumption is that usenetserver operates their own front-ends and network backbone, but shares storage with other highwinds NSPs.

This service is known for being among the first to offer truly unlimited access but also for their bumpy service. Usenetserver has announced that they put up a new beta online that might reduce those problems. We suspect that this move is mainly a concentration of resources among all the highwinds reseller services.

At 15$/month with free SSL service and 100+ days retention (which is growing on their new platform), usenetserver is offering a good value. They only offer access to a server in the US, which might result in slower speed for European customers.

Newshosting

admin — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 19:30:59 +0000

Newshosting was known as the ultimate unlimited provider in the 15$/month field. Since the competition seems to have grown faster, their value isn’t as great as it used to be anymore, but they are still offering a good service.

Newshosting also belongs to highwinds but seems to be one of the few who actually operate parts of the servers themselves. A second server in the Netherlands ensures fast speeds for European customers. SSL and a little more retention will set the price to a very high 20$ / month, we do not recommend this plan as you will get a lot more value from 20$ plans of other providers such as powerusenet.