which newsgroup provider to go with?

CyberGhost

easynews or giganews?

which has more stuff on it?

also, is there a contract or something? can I just pay for 1 month and that's it. meaning that if I don't like it I can just not pay for it next month, and just forget it - you know, no strings attached?

Gegerty

I'd like some advice on the same please.....

Chalk

i use easynews,
havent checked but i think they use giganews servers anyway....

silent

Chalk wrote:

havent checked but i think they use giganews servers anyway....

they never have, easynews has more storage as in total and more features including their biggest advantage - web interface. retention around 37days these days. giganews is nntp only but has ~44 days retention. these two have been the best for long time and are staying as the best, depends what you want. EN has 10G/30 days whichever comes first for 10$ and best access in their web - they even have autounrar for e.g. movies. GN has unlimited plans on the other side for 25$.
cheaper posibilities include astraweb and newshosting, though presonally I found astraweb quite slow at times.
http://docs.newzbin.com/Usenet:Premium_Providers
http://www.usenetforyou.com/provider/index.php

Gegerty

I've connected to a free server just to get a feel for it (free.yottanews.com). Looks good so far. What do I do with the PAR2 files once i've downloaded them?

Spunog UIE

astraweb is good, and very cheap. Just trying it with the 25gigs no time limit. Speeds max out the 2mb connection from 11pm-6pm between 6pm and 11pm, speeds appear to be capped sometimes, dropping to around 120/140k which is not too bad.

rsynnott

I assume you're looking for files, but if you just want conventional newsgroup access, most ISPs have one.