
Honorary mention for free, limited Usenet access: Google Groups
Usenet for free software#
From there, it’s just a case of learning the software and accessing newsgroups. Your access provider should give you all the information you need to configure and set up your Usenet client. Once you have your newsgroup reader software and Usenet access, you can start using the network. Step five: Use your newsgroup reader and access provider to start browsing Usenet Two providers that do this are Newshosting and Easynews: if you decide to try out their free trials, you can download the software without charge, then take part in conversations and download files. We also mentioned that some Usenet providers also offer free software if you subscribe to their services. In step two, we talked about newsgroup reader software, and mentioned that only a couple of them were completely free and open-source, but that they only allowed you to download files.

Step four: Remember that some Usenet providers also offer free reader software In the meantime, take a look at each of the providers, and choose the one that best suits your needs. Google Groups is also a Usenet access provider, but it’s limited in what it can do, so we haven’t included it as an option here.

Usenet providers offering the longest free trialsĮach of these providers offers slightly different services in terms of download speeds, concurrent connections, how long they retain files, and similar factors.
Usenet for free for free#
But, some of them do offer free trials, so you can at least try them out for free to see if they’re worth subscribing to. Unfortunately, we don’t have quite as many options for completely-free access.Īll Usenet providers, apart from Google Groups, do charge for access. Now it’s time to look at the other side-your access provider. We’ve solved one half of the Usenet access puzzle-the newsgroup reader. Newshosting is one of the leading Usenet providers (Image credit: Newshosting)

Step three: Find a free or low-cost Usenet access provider Now you have the software you need, let’s explore Usenet access providers. Neither of them allows access to conversations and threads in newsgroups.įor those, you’ll need one of the other newsgroup reader options, or Google Groups, which we’ll cover later. There’s just one problem here-both of these programs can only be used to access files on Usenet newgroups. Newsgroup readers that are completely open-source and free examples include SABnzbd and NZBGetĭownloading and installing SABnzbd or NZBGet is free, and you can use either of these applications as your newsgroup reader.
Usenet for free trial#
Usenet for free pro#
