Giganews Usenet Reaches 1200 Days Retention

I have to admit that I’m pretty biased when it comes to Giganews and Usenet access in specific. I have been a happy Giganews customer for years, even though I pay a premium price for a premium service. Giganews did a lot to improve their service and product in past years. I’m talking about the VPN service that Diamond account owners get for free, or the soon to be released file hosting service Dump Truck which will feature 256 Kbit encryption and no file size or transfer speed limitations.

But Giganews has not only added other services, they have also constantly improved the retention, performance and quality of their core service. The company just a few days ago reached 1200 days of retention for all binary newsgroups. This basically means that Giganews customers have access to information and files that date back almost three and a half year. That’s a big milestone, especially since all those information and files are accessible with the same performance and completion rate (that is 100%).

I honestly cannot say if the 1200 days of retention are more than any other Usenet provider offers, or if the upload and download speeds are faster. It would be very difficulty to prove, considering that you would need accounts with all comparable services on the Internet.

What I do know is that I’m a happy customer. When I download, I max my 50 Mbit connection every time, and I have the feeling that I would also max faster connections.

The most interesting account package is the Diamond package in my opinion. The reason for this is not because of the unlimited Usenet downloads or SSL connections, as other packages offer that as well. The core reason is the free VPN that you get with the package. VyprVPN has servers in several countries that you can connect to, including the United States, United Kingdom and France. If you are not sure what you can do with it, check out this article: Use VyprVPN To Access US-Only Websites or check out the core service review here. As a webmaster, the service is indispensable, for instance to check how your site is ranking in search engines.

The price is still higher than at comparable Usenet providers. If you do not need a VPN or another of the free services you may want to look at the Platinum account instead which is available for $10 less.

Are you making use of the Usenet? If so, what’s the provider and software that you are using?

---

© Martin Brinkmann for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2011. | Permalink |
Add to del.icio.us, digg, facebook, reddit, twitter
Post tags: giganews, retention, usenet, usenet provider, vpn, vyprvpn

XSUsenet, Free Lifetime Usenet Access

I’m very cautious when I see sites making claims that they offer a service for free for a lifetime. There is usually a catch, just like there is when you see hosting providers offer unlimited bandwidth, but that’s another story.

The Dutch Usenet provider XSUsenet is currently offering free lifetime accounts to access the Usenet. Usenet in this regard includes access to binary groups which usually are not offered for free Usenet users.

You get free life time access, a solid 600 day retention, no IP retention, no personal details on file. All you need to do to sign up is to enter information into the registration form on the provider homepage.

Here you need to enter a valid email address and a country (only Netherlands, Germany and Belgium are selectable). Once done you get the login and server details send to the email address that you have entered in the form.

You can then use the information to connect to the Usenet. The speed is capped at 1Mbit per second at two connection tops. Users who need more speed or connections can upgrade their account to premium access starting at $6.99 for a 100 Mbit connection per month.

Free Usenet clients that you can use are the web based SABnzbd or Grabit. Please note that Usenet or newsgroups are not only about downloading binary files. You find many discussion groups there, Mozilla is for instance using the Usenet for some of their development discussions.

It is likely that the company will eventually close down the creation of new free accounts. I’d suggest you grab a free account as soon as possible.

I have tested the service and it worked just fine. I received the confirmation email with the Usenet server information in my email. Setup was a breeze and connection speed was as advertised.

Users who are just starting with the Usenet, or want to try it without giving away personal information can use the service to do just that. It is not anonymous though, considering that the service still sees the IP that you signed up with and that you connect with.

You can check out the service’s homepage here. The sign up form is at the right side. (via)

---

© Martin Brinkmann for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2011. | Permalink |
Add to del.icio.us, digg, facebook, reddit, twitter
Post tags: newsgroups, nzb, usenet, usenet provider