What is Usenet?

Usenet is a world-wide distributed system of discussion groups. It is made up "newsgroups" which are classified hierarchically by subject.

People post messages to these newsgroups, which are called "articles" in the Usenet's jargon. This messages are posted to a single usenet server usually provided by a commercial service, like Giganews, but they are also commonly provided by your ISP, or your local Universities.

Just imagine a popular message board or forum you know, but instead of being a web based application, it has its own protocol for distribution, as well as for reading and writing to the messages posted to the newsgroups.

So, you usually don't read and post messages to the newsgroups using a web browser. You need an special type of program called "News Reader". However, there are several website that provides a web interface to the Usenet's newsgroups. One of them is Google groups.

When you post a message to your Usenet provider's server, it is then broadcasted to others Usenet's servers, which in turn send the message to others Usenet's servers and so on. If for any reason, you post some wrong information in a message on a Usenet newsgroups, you most likely won't have a chance to stop it, nor ask to the administrators for deletion, because it will be forwarded to other servers within minutes.

Giganews is one of the biggest, oldest and most important Usenet Provider these days. They started on 1994 with a single server, and have grown up to what they are today. They use multi homed Gigabit connections to several Internet backbones which optimizes upstream speeds.

They currently provide 6 easy to understand plans:

The most important Giganews features are:

• 14-day trial offer, which allows you to test-drive their service, and even better, they give you 10GB of transfer with that 14-day trial.
• 2416+ Days of retention in text newsgroups.
• 544+ Days retention in binary newsgroups.
• SSL Encryption w/ 10 bonus connections, for just additional $5.00.
• Headers are free, they don't count toward your allowable download quota.
• 99% completion rate

Agent 2.0 is the top-rated Usenet newsreader on the Internet. Agent is also an excellent POP email client.
This high level of integration between Usenet news and POP email separates Agent from all other communication products. Whether you are downloading yEnc binaries or responding to email, Agent provides you with all the right features.
Agent is also the most mature newsreader on the market. Since the introduction of "Agent .99" in 1994, Agent has always maintained the highest possible ratings from the most trusted sites for Internet software.

Read more about it at www.forteinc.com/agent