Telus has shut down their newsgroup service as of April 2008. I know that this is not a popular protocol, but it is another degrade in services. "The future is NOT friendly"

Once upon a time newsgroups were one of the most popular inter-active features of the internet. But guess what. Web forums like this one have taken over the same function.

How many of you still subscribe to old fashioned text newsgroups?

imo, its just used to pirate media now. No IP tracking.

You mean it is used to "distribute" media. ;)

It was a loooooong time coming. The article retention on Telus' news servers was an atrocious two or three days. I don't blame them for shutting them down; social web sites, blogs and these vBulletin based forums have taken over the duties that were accorded to newsgroups prior.

Torrents have also taken over.

Starting in the 1980s I was a dedicated Usenet user for many years after leaving behind 300 to 2400 baud BBSes for a dial-up 14Kbps Internet connection through my university.

In 1995 I wrote a chapter on administering Usenet news servers for a Linux/Unix text book from Sams. Already by that time one of the things I stressed was the heavy load on the network and the local servers to handle Usenet. It was a great protocol up until the early 1990s but the wheels began to fall off around the time when the binary posters and spammers got going big time with automation. At a time when costly SCSI hard drives of 100MB to 250MB were required in RAID arrays to handle 1 to 2 GB of Usenet feeds for one day alone, the price to support it was already getting scary.

I honestly believe that the data glut on Usenet back then actually helped to propel the new WWW to its pre-eminent stature as protocol of choice for the Internet.

Today, even with the ease of devoting a TB or more to its needs, Usenet simply does not merit the energy devoted to maintaining it. I'm not at all suprised by the Telus move.

I don't think Usenet is about to go away. It is just becoming more of a specialized service and not something that every ISP provides anymore.

But the truth is that ISPs could reduce their interconnect bandwidth and costs if they ran a decent Usenet server (instead of the garbage ones most have). Rather than each user pulling all those binaries across the ISP's interconnect gateway the ISP would only pull it down once to their own Usenet server.

Ya, I don't think its going away either, but is doesn't seem to make sense for ISPs to support it anymore with such better protocols available.

Newsgroups are most definitley not going away, they're back and better than ever. However, they are premium services now, i.e. Newshosting, Giganews, etc... I wuoldn't EVER trade in my newsgroup account for torrents, BLEH!!! I am always maxed out my connection (5MB/s on my Telus 100Mbit line) and the retention and up-to-dateness of things on newsgruops is crazy. However, that being said, ISP connections to newsgroups usually feature low speeds, and little retention. I am not surprised Telus cancelled there newsgroup offering! Premium packages are hte way to go, best $15 a month Ive ever spent! of course, the additonal 25cents to newzbin ;)

This is why pay-access Usenet providers have probably quadrupled in the last 5 years. Die-hard users are now just paying for the service that all ISPs once provided for free.

I subscribe to UseNetServer. They have a 105 day retention, 10 connections allowed from different IP's. They also have SSL access for secured connections. So I am able to share the account with someone else. We split the $14.95/month fee. I always max out my download speeds using this. I never use Torrents, I find newsgroups a lot better. I am also not suprised Telus shut down their servers. they only had a two day retention. I think Shaw is worse, they only have a day, well they used to only have a day.

I must be doing something wrong, because I did a three day trial with one of those newsgroup resellers, and I couldn't find anything worth downloading. Feel free to PM me with suggestions...

Binary postings killed many of the free usenet providers. At one time I had free access to usenet but many of them refused to carry binary groups or shut down. Usenet provided essentially the same function as forums. It still does but forums are now more popular.

I love the newsgroups. I admit that I mostly use them for binary downloads. The advantage is: mostly anonymous ... no IP tracking like P2P and very few if any infected files. Most folks on usenet know their stuff which translates to quality downloads. I use active-news.com. Terrible service if you need help, but quality feeds and real cheep.