Because of the heavy storage requirements, most ISPs don't offer Usenet access. However Google, as well as other specialty services, do offer access to current and archived Usenet message traffic. A variety of specialty software packages, called newsgroup readers, are available to browse and download newsgroup content.

Background     Perl Newsgroups

Browsing Searches

Newsreaders     Newsgroup Services

The value of Usenet discussion groups cannot be overstated! I use them all the time to research technical problems I'm having, plus I answer questions in the newsgroups to give back as much as I take!

Background
The Usenet (USEr NETwork) is a decentralized message system - allowing users read and post messages to any of the over 30,000 discussion groups, similar to the bulletin board systems (BBS) that preceded the availability of the Internet. A very wide range of topics are available, such as humor, science, history, politics, and yes, even sex. There are over 2,000,000 new Usenet postings every day!

The Usenet is decentralized - meaning that there is no owner of the Usenet nor is there a central server where all of the Usenet Newsgroups messages are maintained. Newsgroups are maintained on multiple servers which collaboratively exchange messages between one another.

The value of Usenet discussion groups cannot be overstated! I use them all the time to research technical problems I'm having, plus I answer questions from time to time in order to give back as much as I take!

Usenet Hierarchy
The Usenet is split into several categories (hierarchies) of messages. The most used hierarchies include:

alt comp humanities misc news rec sci soc talk

computers literature, religion, history, etc. any that don't fit the other 7 hierarchies Usenet itself recreation science current events and social issues soc. topics, but closer to realtime chat

Binary vs Text
Some newsgroups specialize in making available file downloads such as images, videos, or software. These newsgroups are sometimes referred to as binary newsgroups (or just 'binaries'), in reference to the type of files available for download.

Retention
Because of the enormous storage requirements for Usenet message traffic, newsgroup services often limit the length of time they will retain message traffic. Text messages are often available for as long as 5 years. However, binary retention can be as low as 100-200 days.

For example, Giganews, a newsgroup service, reported the following text message archives available for viewing.

rec sci comp

3.6M 3.4M 0.6M

These are the 3 largest text newsgroups. Surprisingly, computer related topics are only the third most active text newsgroups.

Non-English Newsgroups
When you open a newsreader you'll find a significant number of the 30K+ newsgroups start with one of the following prefixes, indicating a non-English language groups, a group managed by companies or organizations about their products, or geographic/local hierarchies. Here are some of the non-English newsgroups.

aus.* — Australia ba.* — San Francisco Bay area       ca.* — California can.* — Canada cn.* — Chinese chi.* — Chicago de.* — German england.* — England fidonet.* — FidoNet fr.* — France

fj.* — Japan gnu.* — GNU software hawaii.* — Hawaii harvard.* — Harvard hp.* — Hewlett-Packard it.* — Italian microsoft.* — Microsoft products tw.* — Taiwan uk.* — UK