2007-01-06 03:07:09 · 3 answers · asked by GAURAV S 1 in Computers & Internet ➔ Internet
Usenet is a collection of "newsgroups"...discussion forums, really, that dates back to 1979. Newsgroups can be read using a program called a "newsreader", or through a web site like Google Groups or Giganews. Many ISPs and some organizations still run "news servers", which receive messages from other servers.
Usenet is important in the history of the Internet because it's where a lot of the original "netiquette" rules were invented. It's also the source of a lot of historical Internet drama, like Cantor & Siegal (first mass commercial spam) and the Great Renaming.
These days, discussion has mostly moved onto the web. Usenet is mostly used as a way to distribute encoded binary files (**** & warez, mostly) away from the public eye and pretty much anonymously.
2007-01-06 03:18:47 · answer #1 · answered by watsonc64 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
usenet is a collection of bulletin board user groups that has existed for years and is still actively used today. Usenet went from being "very useful" to "unbelievably useful" when google, a few years back, indexed all the answers and created "google groups." Google groups" is a super fast, super powerfull way of searching through all the questions and answers for all time that that have been posted in usenet boards. If I have a question about something, I will always search there first, before posting a question in a place like "yahoo answers."
2007-01-06 11:35:15 · answer #2 · answered by mark w 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet
2007-01-06 11:08:42 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋