DSL and Cable Companies dropping all alt. news groups

"JCMc" wrote in news:T8E6k.6784$Mu.3919@trndny07:

I lost my free access to news servers when my DSL provider, Embarq, severed their relationship with Earthlink. It wasn't that big a loss as Earthlink's news servers were slow, unreliable and incomplete. Embarq has no news servers at all. When I asked Embarq how I would be compensated for the reduced service they said "very few customers access Usenet anyway so we decided it wasn't worth the cost".

I subscribe to Giganews. (

I don't understand why you say none of the pay or free newsservers are as convenient as the Verizon feed?

You subscribe to a newsserver, you set up your newsreader (OE in your case) with the necessary information just as you did when you first set up OE for the Verizon newsserver.

To read a group you click on OE to start it, click on this group and read the information, exactly like you do now. The only difference you should see is if you examine your headers or if you examine your settings in OE, there should be no difference at all in convenience.

I always believe in voting with your wallet. If Verizon will not server news groups - f*ck 'em! Get an ISP that will.

Of, if you're chicken, click here .

Well, this might sound lazy, but, when I decided to use Verizon as my Internet Service Provider, among several things was their support of News Groups. And, yes I did have to establish links in my news reader to their servers, but that is now several years ago, and uses the same credentials as does email, so a single set-up a couple years ago configured me to read email from several accounts as well as the news groups I subscribe to.

To switch to a new News Group provider, I have to find one that is reliable, set up an account, establish credentials, and in some cases, there are set up fees even for ones identified as "Free" (see Terra News). Then I'll have to update my news reader with the new server name, access credentials, and then go through and rebuild my subscription list. Ok, none of this is beyond the wit of man in general, and me in particular. But in my use of the term "convenient" it is not as convenient as not having to do any of these things today, this week, or anytime in the foreseeable future.

Might be an issue of semantics, or evidence that I am lazy. Just my opinion, I'm not sure anyone else would agree, and hence the question in my original posting. Your opinion and response is most welcome, I 100% appreciate that you posted. Thank you, Jere

Agreed. I often pick my ISP based on certain services that they provide. Truth be told the only things I want out of an ISP is 1) a fast, cheap connection, 2) static IP (I run a web site), 3) DNS service and 4) NNTP services. Everything else I do myself. I could care less if the ISP provides email or filtering or whatever, just the above.

Not always.

Again, not always.

Then they are not really free now are they...

Oh my god, my heart bleeds for you!

Ditto!

Yes this is a good point. Honestly however, how many are there?

And like usual a man will typically spend more effort complaining about such things than just doing them! The effort you expended writing this very post would more than cover the effort that you would have expended if you just did it!

And like I said - you could just click here . How much "effort" does that take?

Andrew DeFaria wrote in news:485bc3b6$0$48219$ snipped-for-privacy@news.qwest.net:

Some say that they filter all posts from Google. Some that I respect. But the main reason I do not want to use Google is that I really dislike the interface. Searching is another matter, I find that easier in Google than through Xnews.

Because of off topic spammers such as yourself.

That would be their problem.

I don't respect people who participate in needless censorship.

So, you have a solution but you find it unpretty or not to your liking. I see...

Huh? Where's the spam here? Really!

Please understand the UIP (Usenet Improvement Project, see URL in signature) doesn't have anything to do with using Google Groups to search for posts, that's the easiest way to do it.

The purpose of the UIP is to help Usenet users from seeing the floods of spam that Google apparently encourages and to prevent users from seeing the often completely idiotic posts from those not sufficiently aware of Usenet or Netiquette to post properly.

It's a good idea to help those few Google Groupers who's posts you do wish to read in setting up a newsreader and using it.

Yes look at the URL in the signature but don't bother going there. It's just one person's hatred of Google Groups and his drive to get rid of it.

Uhm... His post has *NOTHING* to do with Quicken, making it off-topic and spam.

Andrew DeFaria just earned himself an honored and esteemed place in my twit filters.

Hi, Andrew, I see you took an extra dose of stupid pills this morning, how else to explain such a idiotic and completely wrong post from you?

FWIW, nobody's trying to get rid of Google Groups, it's a very valuable asset but Google Groups spammers and clueless posters are not and those are the ones targeted by the UIP.

Why not learn WFT you're talking about before posting?

1. Off topic != Spam 2. The discussion was about his lose of access to this *Quicken* newsgroup, which makes it on topic 3. If you disagree with #2 then see #1!

There! Let's see you get out of that loop! :-P