Giganews Review
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Giganews recently increased the price of their Diamond account to $34.99 a month. While the quality of service is very good we feel they have priced themselves out of the market. Especially with so many Usenet providers offering $10 unlimited Usenet access.
Giganews has been a leading Usenet provider for years now. When we started NGR they were hands down the best service. Now that answer depends on how much you care to spend on Usenet service.
Let's take a look at Giganews features and price compared to other leading services including UseNetServer, Astraweb and NewsDemon:
Giganews Comparison
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Retention |
Extra Features |
Monthly |
Annual |
|
| - Giganews |
1,278 days |
Client, VPN |
$34.99 |
$400+ |
| - UseNetServer |
1,268 days |
Usenet Search |
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| - Newshosting |
1,268 days |
Client, Search |
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| - NewsDemon |
1,267 days |
Storage, Reader |
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| - Astraweb |
1,267 days |
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As you can see Giganews is four times the price of both UseNetServer and Astraweb. Hard to believe since each provider offers quality Usenet access. Giganews service is of excellent quality. We just think the $35 price tag is way too much. If you are comfortable paying $35 a month and would like to learn more about Giganews' features read on.
In December 2009 Giganews started offering VPN access. The service (VyprVPN) is included with all Diamond Usenet accounts. Members receive PPTP / L2TP VPN access. In November 2010 Gignews released a Usenet browser named Mimo. It has since been recoded with UI enhancements. The newsreader is included for Diamond customers.
Giganews is fast. Speed use to be more of an issue than it is now a days. As we can max a 40 Mbps line with a number of services. Giganews Diamond plan allows up to
50 simultaneous connections. With news servers located in the US, Europe and Asia. For those who download headers take a look at their Giganews accelerator software. A free download for customers that compresses and encrypts header downloads for even better performance.
In the past Giganews charged $5 a month for SSL access. In the Fall of 2010 they updated pricing to include 256-bit SSL encryption with all accounts. A nice addition as almost everyone includes SSL.
Giganews offers a variety of plans ranging from unlimited downloads down to 5 gigabyte a month. Here are the details of each account:
Giganews offers these plans with 1,278 days of binary retention:
- Diamond: unlimited, SSL,
50 conn., VPN, Mimo - $34.99/mo.
- Platinum: unlimited, SSL, 20 connections - $24.99/mo.
- Silver: 50 GB/mo., SSL, 20 connections - $14.99/mo.
- Bronze: 10 GB/mo., SSL, 20 connections - $9.99/mo.
Giganews offers these value plans with 30 day binary retention:
- Pearl: 5 GB/mo., SSL, 20 connections - $4.99/mo.
Giganews support is responsive. According to Giganews they have customers in over 180 countries and therefore offer 24/7 support with a low average response time on support tickets. They also offer a customer satisfaction survey for every support incident.
Bottom line - Giganews offers very good service but we feel they are well overpriced at $34.99 a month for Diamond access. Even the $24.99 Platinum (Usenet-only) plan is overpriced with so many quality providers offering $10 unlimited Usenet. Those willing to pay $400+ a year will enjoy the Giganews service. We just prefer to spend less.
