didn't they get bought by some company and then it shut down...? where are they now? just totally gone?
2006-12-05 12:28:43 · 4 answers · asked by Anonymous in Computers & Internet ➔ Internet
Alive and kicking...
First of all, Usenet (newsgroups) is decentralized as it runs on various servers so it could not be bought as it is not owned by any single organization...Or rather numerous versions are owned by numerous organizations.
My guess is you heard about the Deja News archives being sold. Usenet does not use a web protocol, so is not a website per se. However, Deja News used to archive newsgroup discussions on the web. They did indeed sell their archives during the .com bust in 2001. Guess to whom? Who else? Google. See here for more info - http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/pressrelease48.html Google now archives newsgroup discussions here - http://groups.google.com/groups/dir?sel=33554433 You can even interact on Usenet using Google, but only discussions. To access the binary groups you still need to log into an NNTP server or use a fee service such as Easynews - http://www.easynews.com
2006-12-05 12:38:37 · answer #1 · answered by mapz 2 · 2⤊ 0⤋
usenet will be there till the sun explodes
you need to have an isp that provides you newsgroup/usenet access.
and you can use Thunderbird (the makers of firefox) to access that once you get the settings from your isp
or you can go to groups.google.com and view them via the web.
2006-12-05 12:38:41 · answer #2 · answered by arus.geo 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
They are still there, and are used for chatting and downloading usually illegal files through "binary" newsgroups.
You can browse and post to groups online through
http://groups.google.com/
It has a nice interface for browsing Usenet Newsgroups.
2006-12-05 12:33:06 · answer #3 · answered by Buckdog06 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
They are still there and fairly active, they are available at http://groups.google.com
2006-12-05 12:34:20 · answer #4 · answered by mcombe 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋