what is newsgroup?how can one participate in it?

Answer 1

Newsgroups are internet discussion groups. You can find a topic on alot of things on these newsgroups. You can even get pictures, videos, etc.

Well if you have outlook express, you can view them using that program. Click on "news" which appears under all your email folders. If news doesn't show up, click on tools, then newsgroups and it will ask you what newsgroups you want to subscribe to.

Another way is to use a program like x-news. It is free from www.download.com. You can search for the type of topics you are looking for by keyword and it will group the posts according to subject title for you if you like:

http://www.download.com/Xnews/3000-2164_4-10144167.html?tag=lst-0-1

The problem with the last two methods is that your server may not have all the newsgroups and it may keep the posts for a short period of time.

The best way I found (but not for getting pictures) is to use google. Google groups archives all newsgroup posts:

http://groups.google.com/

Again, you can search by keyword or category. You can even start your own discussion group. It is free to sign up with google.

The downside of google groups is that they don't archive binary files like images and videos.