I go to check out the newsgroups today, only to find that Deja (formerly Deja News) has apparently been bought by Google. OK. Fine. As part of this wonderful plan, I can apparently not get into my My Deja page, nor can I post – unless there’s just something I’m missing here (certainly not out of the realm of possibility).
Anybody else use Deja on a regular basis? Have you had the same problem (starting today)?
Yeah, I found the same thing.
According to the page they put up http://groups.google.com/googlegroups/help.html , former Deja members will not be able to post new messages to Usenet. They say that they will reinstate this, but they don’t offer a time estimate.
So, that being said, does anyone know of a good web-based Usenet reader/poster?
Zev Steinhardt
That was gonna be my next question. Unfortunately, my ISP hasn’t had a newsgroup feed in probably over a year. I keep meaning to switch, but because I could get feeds on Deja, I never got around to it. < grumble, grumble >
Thanks.
Anyone have any suggestions on a good web-based Usenet reader/poster?
Zev Steinhardt
Free or paid zev?
I can’t think of any free ones right this moment. newscene.com, altopia.com, supernews.com were my favorites but I don’t have any experience with newscene. Far as I know you have to pay to use them all now.
Yes, there tons of free public newservers that you can access with a Free Agent reader, free, from forteinc.com but the free public newservers don’t have much in the way of feeds. Some are better than others. I don’t have a list of them as they change daily.
If you can get Agent to work on your computer David, you should be able to input a free public newserver. If you can’t find one let me know.
I was hoping for free (of course). I had Deja, and there was the late, lamented RemarQ, as well, but now I can’t seem to find any free ones. I was hoping the TM might have some ideas.
Zev Steinhardt
Well, if you’re looking for unsecured news servers to use until you can get access to another, you can check Open News Servers. However it looks not to have been updated in over a year.
Mail and News has a functional, albeit awkward interface for accessing newsgroups. You need to sign up for a @mailandnews.com email address, but it’s free.
I just learned RemarQ has been baught out by Supernews and will be discontinuing their free news service.
To continue on the subject…
My biggest complaint I have with the switchover was that Google, for some reason, decided to not to keep Deja operating in some capacity for the switchover. Deja still had online archives dating back to 1999. Now that’s gone for an indeterminte length of time, while Google figues out what to do with it.
There were some discussions that I was just starting to get into, about extending our subway system in Washington DC out to Tysons Corner and Dulles Internat’l Airport (about a 25 mile project) that I can’t access anymore.
Here’s a link to a the Google/Deja story on The Register. It has quotes from both the CEO of Google, and one of the founders of the Usenet.
It’s been discontinued for months now (I was forced to go to Deja for a while before switching ISPs, and getting usenet access again.). It ended when Novell bought Supernews/RemarQ.
Come to think about it, if you use IE or Netscape, just select NEWSGROUPS from the menu bar & then you can read/post to them for free.
How about that David B?
Unfortunately, he said his ISP doesn’t provide a newsgroup feed so there’s nothing for IE or Netscape to connect to.
David, Have you tried a subscription service? Supernews is excellent and if you don’t use the binary groups, VERY cheap. (if you do, it’s like $15/month for 2.5 gigs of DLs) ( http://www.supernews.com )
Fenris
God it really sucks. They took away the date limiter in the search and that is really the only thing I needed!
I read newsgroups through my ISP, but I used Deja to track comments on a company I do some work for. We didn’t participate in those discussions but we got lots of ideas that allowed us to improve the company. Now I can still search, but I have no way of limiting the search to new posts, or even to sort the results by date.
Why the hell they couldn’t just leave Deja up until they were ready to come out with their brand new interface is beyond me.
This is the second time this has happened to me in the last month (and yes, it IS all about me). But at least Yahoo! didn’t convert eGroups until they were ready with all the fundamental functionality.
I like Google (and have liked them since they first opened shop) but this is just a boner move on their part. Half of whatever Deja community there was will be gone by the time they get things straightened out, having found new sources for USENET or, worse, having fallen out of the habit of reading newsgroups.
And god do I hope that they don’t roll the USENET archive into the general web search of Google. Make it an option, please, don’t force it on me. Almost never will the item I’m looking for be found in USENET.
“Unfortunately, he said his ISP doesn’t provide a newsgroup feed so there’s nothing for IE or
Netscape to connect to.”
Ah, buzzer, wrongo!..Netscape & IE provide their very own newsfeeds.
handy, where in IE is the newsgroup link? I’m lookin’ and I don’t see nuthin.
Thanks.
(Fenris: I’m not going to pay more for something I should already be getting but just haven’t gotten around to doing something about. But thanks. 
)
Since when, handy? When I set up my Netscape 6 or my IE 5, one of the first things it ask was where is the news server my ISP uses. If I don’t answer them when I install, if I try to use any news group feature, it will ask me again.
IE and Netscape provide their very own newsreader, a subtle difference from a newsfeed.
That’s what I get for not checking the USENET for over a year.
Tell me, what day is today? Is Bill Clinton still our president? Are they still trying to impeach him? Has Amazon.com made any money, yet?
Just call me Sterling van Wrinkle
No. Yes. No.
Prove it. IE and Netscape provide Newsreaders, not newsfeeds. If they do provide newsfeeds, please let me know the NNTP addresses. I’d love to save the approx $15/mo I’m spending on Supernews.
Fenris