Giganews Review
2010 Editors' Choice Winner |
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- 550 days binary retention |
From high retention rates to blazing fast speeds Giganews has it all. Let's start by reviewing their retention. They offer 550 days of binary retention in over 110,000 uncensored newsgroups. This is an area where some Usenet servicess advertise high rates and then you find its only in text groups or a few binary groups. Others offer high retention via NZB but lack header retention. That is not the case with Giganews. They have the highest retention rate of all the newsgroup servers we've tested. Completion follows suit with 99%+ completion rates.
In March 2009 Giganews announced they were building binary retention up to 365 days. They quickly surpassed the year mark and continue to lead the industry in retention. Text retention has reached an amazing 2,375 days. That's over six and a half years of text posts!
Giganews continues to add value to their service in other ways as well. In December 2009 they started offering VPN service free to Diamond customers. The service (VyprVPN) is a $14.99/mo. value and will remain free until at least June 30, 2010.
Speed - Giganews took first place when it comes to bandwidth. We easily maxed out a 10+ Mbps connection with SSL enabled for long periods of time at all hours of the day. Their Diamond plan allows up to 50 simultaneous connections. I've seen images of the service running close to 50 Mbps. For those who download lots of headers take a look at the Giganews accelerator software. A free download for customers that compresses and encrypts header downloads for even better performance.
Encryption - you want secure Usenet access? They've got it. It will cost you a little extra but you can add 256 bit SSL encryption and an additional 10 connections for $5 a month. The most impressive part was that our speeds were tremendous even with SSL enabled. You always expect encryption to slow down connection speeds to compensate for the additional overhead. We were able to stay over 7 Mbps with SSL enabled.
Pricing plans - Giganews offers a variety of plans ranging from unlimited downloads down to 3 gigabyte a month. Here are the details of each account:
Giganews offers these plans with 550 days of binary retention:
- Diamond: unlimited downloads, SSL, 50 conn., VPN - $29.99/mo.
- Special: save 50% on the first month + VPN access (more details)
- Platinum: unlimited downloads, 20 connections - $24.99/mo.
- Silver: 35 GB/mo., 20 connections - $12.99/mo.
- Bronze: 10 GB/mo., 20 connections - $12.99/mo.
Giganews offers these value plans with 30 day binary retention:
- Pearl: 5 GB/mo., 20 connections - $4.99/mo.
- Jade: 3 GB/mo., 20 connections - $2.99/mo.
Add SSL encryption and 10 extra connections to any plan (below diamond level) for $5 a month.
Support - prompt and knowledgeable. According to Giganews they have customers in over 180 countries and therefore offer 24/7 support with a 10 minute average response time on support tickets. They also offer a customer satisfaction survey for every support incident.
Bottom line - Giganews brings the most to the table when it comes to newsgroup access. Their speed, retention and completion rank #1 among our Editors' Choice winners. We highly recommend you give them a try.
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AT&T, Time Warner, Verizon or Sprint customer? See our ISP Newsgroup Specials page. |
