The Web, Email, Instant Messaging, VOIP Telephony, and even Peer to Peer Filesharing are all Internet applications that have become everyday parts of our modern lives.

Like these services, Usenet is also an application which operates over the Internet and provides a very valuable and popular service to millions of people worldwide.

However, because of the greater popularity of the other Internet applications, Usenet still unfairly remains somewhat obscure to most Internet users, although its history predates most of them.

Here we will explain what Usenet is, but more importantly, what you as a user can do with the Usenet and how UsenetBinaries.com services can enhance the Usenet and make it more accessable to users than traditional Usenet usage methods.

What is Usenet?

Usenet, or USErs NETwork, is an unfortunately ambiguous legacy name for a very specific Internet service which provides access to the largest collection of Internet discussion groups - referred to as Usenet Newsgroups, where internet users can discuss any topic they desire with others worldwide.

Very much so, but with some important differences.

Unlike a Web Forum, where some forum software is placed on a web server and users discuss topics using their web browser, the Usenet does not natively work over the Web.

Another important difference is that for some topics, the Usenet newsgroup for that topic is currently the canonical discussion forum for that topic. That may mean that it either has the largest community of users on that topic, or the largest community of experts on that topic, and in many cases both.

This is because the Usenet has been around for a very long time, before their were modern web forums, and because on the Usenet, there is only ONE web forum for any given specific topic, whereas on the web there may be hundreds - this scatters people interested in this topic across many websites, creating smaller and less trafficked web forums rather than concentrating all the interested parties in one place.

For this reason, if you ask a question on some Usenet newsgroups such as comp.os.linux.misc (a discussion group for Linux computer users), you are much more likely to get more responses from more informed users in a faster amount of time than a web forum.

The Usenet is home to over 50,000 newsgroups of every topic imaginable.

Usenet Binaries - The Other Side of Usenet

Although the Usenet only supports text messages and cannot natively transfer non-text (binary) files -- Usenet users have developed a method for doing exactly this.

The technique involves converting the binary files into a special text encoding which can be transferred as discussion messages on Usenet, and when downloaded by a user, can be reconverted back into its native binary format.

Unfortunately this is obviously much more awkward then just clicking 'download now' on a web page or 'save image as' on a web image, so UsenetBinaries.com offers our web services where the binary files in over 1000 Usenet groups are already reconverted for you every day, and conveniently indexed in thumbnail galleries for extremely simple browsing and download.

Because of the massive amount of adult content on the Usenet, UsenetBinaries.com is only available to users 18 and over.

Tradionally, the Usenet is accessed through a software client (similar to a web browser, but different) - called a Usenet Newsreader. Windows users already have a popular Usenet Newsreader on their computers -- Microsoft Outlook Express (or, on Windows Vista, Windows Mail). Although both are email clients, they also happen to serve double-duty as a Usenet Newsreader.

In order to access the Usenet through a Newsreader, you must have a Usenet account on top of your regular ISP account. Many ISPs used to provide free Usenet service with their internet service - however, due to the prohibitive cost of maintaining the massive amount of data on a Usenet service, most ISPs have discontinued this.

This is where UsenetBinaries.com comes in with its NNTP Service. Users with an account on UsenetBinaries.com which includes NNTP service bandwidth can enter the newsserver name 'news.usenetbinaries.com' into their newsreader account setup with their UsenetBinaries.com username and password, and can access Usenet Newsgroups with their newsreader from any ISP anywhere.

With a basic newsreader such as Outlook Express or Windows Mail, users can participate in all of the Usenet discussions available on UsenetBinaries.com.

In some cases, these newsreaders will also be able to reconvert small files posted to the Usenet in older formats, but may have trouble with newer formats such as yEnc, which is fully supported by UsenetBinaries.com .

This is why UsenetBinaries.com has our web gallery service -- it's WAY easier and more convenient than using a traditional newsreader.

For binary downloads from newsgroups beyond the over 1000 carried in our web service, UsenetBinaries.com provides a free copy of the special GrabIt newsreader - this newsreader is specifically preconfigured to download binaries from UsenetBinaries.com with a minimum of effort.

If you have any further questions regarding our services, please feel free to ask. Our customer support staff has experience with every aspect of the Usenet and our services.