There are a small number of free Usenet servers available around the world. They tend to be slower and less reliable than paid services. Also, they typically do not provide SSL connections, and they have a short article/binary retention time (10 – 100 days).
Some free providers include:
- AIOE (currently down)
- Eternal September — free access to text groups
- Eweka — offers free full access to Usenet for trial accounts
If you download from Usenet, I recommend using an inexpensive paid Usenet provider. See below for some block account options.
A List Of Free Usenet Trials
Here’s my list of the best free trials for Usenet servers:
Eweka (Europe) — Free Usenet Trial
Eweka is a reliable Dutch Usenet provider that offers a hassle-free Usenet trial. It asks for an email address, but I discovered they allow disposable email addresses.
Eweka is available to users in the United States, but you cannot use an IP address when registering for an account. In this case, you need a VPN to get a non-US IP address.
Eweka is a Highwinds Usenet feed provider.
Usenet.Farm (Europe) — Free Usenet Trial
Usenet.Farm is an independent Dutch provider. They offer 20 GB of free downloading. No credit card or other payment is required, only an email address.
Newshosting (U.S.) — Free Usenet Trial
Newshosting offers a 750GB free trial via this link. This offers 720 more GB than the standard free trial. The trial has all the same features as the paid accounts. They offer SSL connections and 4017 days of Retention.
The terms are “Free Trial is over in 14 days or 750GB used, whichever comes first. Free trial is offered for new customers only, one per customer.”
Tweaknews (Europe) — Free Usenet Trial and €2 Block Accounts
Tweaknews offers free trials and block accounts for just €2 euro.
Link: Newshosting
great post
AIOE.org is down?!
Yes, it is. Ping doesn’t get a response. It’s been down for about two weeks now, their website isn’t reachable either, IMHO it’s gone for good.
AIOE info as of Thu, 26 Jan 2023 15:41:43 -0000 (UTC)
“The RAID controller failed and its failure damaged the contents of the disks. Today or tomorrow they let me know what can be recovered, if nothing the recovery times will be long.
best regards”
I am going to download from Usenet. Thank you so much for your sharing. You are offering such a wonderful resource here, and you do so without charge.
well-written article.
well written. good content.
JOHNNNNNNNNNN!
Just received spam from newhosting.com on the address I only provided to free-usenet.com. John may have sold his contact list.
Looks like free-usenet.com is down.
Worked fine for me, for the simple use I had for it.
Domain Name: FREE-USENET.COM
Registry Domain ID: 2010004251_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.PublicDomainRegistry.com
Registrar URL: http://www.publicdomainregistry.com
->Updated Date: 2020-12-02T14:56:56Z
Creation Date: 2016-03-07T16:35:56Z
Registry Expiry Date: 2021-03-07T16:35:56Z
Registrar: PDR Ltd. d/b/a PublicDomainRegistry.com
Registrar IANA ID: 303
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: abuse-contact@publicdomainregistry.com
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.2013775952
Domain Status: clientDeleteProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientDeleteProhibited
Domain Status: clientHold https://icann.org/epp#clientHold
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
Domain Status: clientUpdateProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientUpdateProhibited
Name Server: NS1.SUSPENDED-DOMAIN.COM
Name Server: NS2.SUSPENDED-DOMAIN.COM
DNSSEC: unsigned
URL of the ICANN Whois Inaccuracy Complaint Form: https://www.icann.org/wicf/
whatever it means
I have a large block account still left with them and I am able to connect to the NNTP server IP direct @ 116.202.235.126. DNS for their domain is now completely gone but the server is currently still online if you have a block. No way to reach “JOHN” to see what’s up.
Hey Ben,
http://116.202.235.126:8080/login/ provides a login prompt.
Sadly, lost my pwd…. what would have been the forgotten password url?
Indeed, terrible that it’s gone. I had just taken up John’s Black Friday offer and bought more blocks &{
Can anybody suggest a comparable service not on subscription basis? Maybe link to article here on Greycoder, just for peeps like me who have arrived here while looking for answers to “what happened to free-usenet.com?”
btw, scroll down to Ben’s message from 17.Dec. 2020 he can still connect. (John.. don’t switch off. Hey, whats my pwd?)
Honestly, John (free-usenet.com) should have sent out a last email letting people know about things.
Hi All,
I’m getting this to. unfortunate..
Did also buy a block account, just used a litte off the first one.
No email from John, that he is quiting…
real Bummer..
Ooh and ip addess does not wordt anymore.
Any news on free-usenet?
Haven’t seen or heard a thing
good
nice
Stay clear of ‘free-usenet.com’!
Their luring ‘free’ service is a joke, at 1Mbit and with a password change every three hours.
But far worse: if you buy a block (as I did) and get the promise of a ‘3100day retention’ you will be surprised to find out that this backend server cannot even return binaries that are about one year old. You WILL get data (counting against the paid bandwidth!), but it is garbage, cannot be repaired, as even all the PAR files are corrupt.
Totally useless, a real scam. On top you will get ZERO support or reply from this guy.
BTW: I tested the same NZBs at a different free site (XS); despite being slow it could pull ALL the parts without a single missing block!
Do not even consider ‘free-usenet.com’ – you will waste your time (and money).
indeed. It’s impossible to download more than 10,000 headers anymore and when you do, you can’t append new headers! Their system is extremely buggy and it only works a few minutes at a time.
thanks for the warning! –S.
Haha, first answer…”While not free, 10 euros per year is pretty cheap…”
What’s with all the Trolls? GreyCoder is a free information service. If you don’t like it, go somewhere else. WTF?!!??
One constant of the Internet… morons are everywhere!
None IS free, not “are”
Anonymous,
“None of them IS free, not “are.” You should stay anonymous. Winston Churchill spoke for all of us when he said, “Up with such pedantry, I shall not put.” None (of them) ARE free. Take that, you insufferable $%#^&#@^*..
yeah i’m sorry i have to agree, there already is an article i see named for the Free Trials. A free trial is not the same as free. Why have both articles up?
OK let me know if you find any reliable free Usenet providers..and I’ll add them to this article.
Yes, none can be singular or plural depending upon the context. Back to English 101 for those who disagree. For example: “none of the people agree with you” is perfectly fine. Sounds much better than “none of these people agrees with you,” doesn’t it?
Any easy to use?
andirr@andir.es
https://free-usenet.com
They are free to try out, which is about the closest I could find.
Well,I have a freewebhosting to you,the website is http://www.host.在线, Thank you.
That was a really helpful post. Thanks!
iLoad – http://www.usenet.eu
Evaluate for free (up to 10 GB or 2 weeks)!
Anonymous, no data except e-mail address!
No forced subscription!
Includes free software client! (EN DE)
Includes free usage of our usenet index and search!
snelNL – http://www.snelnl.com
Fast test (3 days)
Unlimited downloads
180 Mbit, about 22.5 MB/s speed
Includes free usage of our usenet index and search!
Includes free software client! (EN DE NL)
ENJOY!!
snelnl “Privacy” policy:
SnelNL requests certain personally identifiable information about you when you register, purchase services / products from, or otherwise use the SnelNL Website. You always have the right to decline our request for your information and to choose not to continue using the Website. You may choose not to provide your personal information through any of the forms on our Website, with the condition that we may not be able to provide the related service to you. We collect general contact information about you such as your name, address, e-mail address and credit card number. Additionally, we do monitor and collect information about your use of the Website through your IP address, computer settings or most recently visited URL.
What’s wrong with this picture:
Article title; “The Best Free Usenet Servers 2016”
Article date; “April 10, 2014”
Not much. I update the articles every year, sometimes I don’t update the original publication date.
https://usenet.cloud allows downloading binary news from usenet to the cloud.
Service is completly free, no sign up required! All you need is a web-browser 🙂
BETA FEATURES
– All connections are secured trought 256-Bit SSL
– Video and audio streaming (computer, tablet, smartphone)
– Automated verification, PAR2 reparation and ZIP/RAR extraction of files
– 1996 days of binary retention
– 5GB of cloud storage for FREE
– Unlimited data transfer
– Unlimited download speed
– Up to 30 simultaneos download connections
Looks like you no longer exists. G’bye.
prima site ga zo door.
try it
https://Free-Usenet.com
Speed: 1Mb/s
Retention: 1100days
Posting: No
Traffic: Unlimited
Simple registration – no personal info needed
Send me news
I have used both UsenetBucket and XSNews.
UsenetBucket is faster and has English support, while XSNews is a noticeably cheaper.
I think his point is that the article is aimed at binaries and not actually using Usenet as a discussion forum. Hence all the servers have amazing low retention and the article is more focused on bandwidth and # of connections etc. Maybe the article should be titled “Best Free Usenet Servers for Binaries 2014” 🙂
The two mentioned (gmane or eternal-september) are for discussion and not for binaries.
-3j