Anyone can post a message to any newsgroup without regard to membership or the desires of others receiving the messages. Usenet newsgroups are distinguished from email lists largely in terms of their comparative lack of centralized control and weak boundaries. From politics to cats, from cooking to computers, Usenet organized billions of messages into millions of conversations sorted into tens of thousands of newsgroups. Like a collection of email lists, Usenet newsgroups can foster the collective construction of discussion threads through the individual creation of messages in reply to one another. The Usenet grew over decades to contain tens of thousands of newsgroups, each devoted to a variety of topics and containing chains of messages in reply to one another in structures called threads. Usenet newsgroups were first created in 1979 at the University of North Carolina. Smith, in Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL, 2011 Usenet Newsgroups Pan a full-featured text and binary NNTP and Usenet client for Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, OpenSolaris, and Windows.Derek L.Mozilla Thunderbird is a free and open-source cross-platform email client, news client, RSS and chat client developed by the Mozilla Foundation.Gnus, is an email and news client, and feed reader for GNU Emacs.Claws Mail is a GTK+-based email and news client for Linux, BSD, Solaris, and Windows.Web-Based Client - Client designed for access through a web browser and does not require any additional software to access Usenet.Īctive Commercial software.Combination client – Jack-of-all-trades supporting text reading/posting, as well as multi-segment binary downloading and automatic Par2 processing.Binary posting client – designed specifically and exclusively for posting multi-part binary files.Some incorporate an interface for accessing selected NZB search websites. NZB downloader – binary grabber client without header support – cannot browse groups or read/post text messages can only load 3rd-party NZBs to download binary post attachments.Some additionally support video and audio streaming. Most now support NZBs, and several either support or plan to support automatic Par2 processing. These generally offer multi- server and multi-connection support. Binary grabber/plucker – designed specifically for easy and efficient downloading of multi-part binary post attachments limited or nonexistent reading/posting ability.Traditional newsreader – text-capable newsreader which can also handle binary attachments, although not as efficiently as more specialized clients.Text newsreader – designed primarily for reading/posting text posts unable to download binary attachments.

How to read newsgroups