Newsgroup Ninja launched in July 2016 as a new Usenet reseller focused on the tech savvy Usenet crowd. Rather than offer a custom newsreader, the Newsgroup Ninja service relies on users experience with popular open-source browsers like SABnzbd and NZBGet. Assuming you are comfortable setting up a newsreader and associated Usenet tools (WinRar, QuickPar, 7-Zip, etc.) then Newsgroup Ninja is a good choice. If you’re new to Usenet or want a service that includes more features (client, search, VPN) then we recommend taking a closer look at either Newshosting (US) or Tweaknews (EU).
As you can see above, Newsgroup Ninja is priced at $7.99 a month. They do not currently offer an annual plan. We suspect if they do in the future that the 12 month term will be discounted below the normal $7.99 monthly price. Payments are made via credit card (Visa, MasterCard, Amex). They would like to offer Bitcoin but their payment processor doesn’t support recurring Bitcoin payments. Newsgroup Ninja uses Stripe for payments. That means they never see your credit card details, but you will need to be comfortable with a third-party payment processor (Stripe) handling your payments. This is quite common though so you’ve likely used Stripe in the past.
The Newsgroup Ninja team announced the launch of their new Usenet service on Reddit last year. At the time they made it clear that the service is a Highwinds reseller. This means that they use the same backend servers as other Highwinds resellers. If you’re already using a service that connects to HW then adding Newsgroup Ninja won’t make a difference for your Usenet downloads. However, Newsgroup Ninja points out some advantages of their service over other resellers. The advantages include easy management and administration through a web interface. You don’t even need to create an account on their site since access is taken care of through tokenized emails. You can cancel directly through the online dashboard.
As you might expect, Newsgroup Ninja supports the same binary retention as other Highwinds resellers. At the time of our review they are advertising 3,000 days of binary retention and growing. We would certainly agree that the Highwinds backend is the fastest in the industry. At $7.99 a month the price is reasonable. We would like to see them offer an annual plan for a bit less, but experienced Usenet fans that don’t want to be tied into a longer term will find Newsgroup Ninja to be a solid choice.
Just how fast is Newsgroup Ninja? It really depends on where you are located. The service gives you access to newsgroup servers in the United States and Europe. You can enter the default server address and the service will automatically direct you to the nearest server farm based on your geo location. In contrast, you can also configure specific servers and can use more than one location in your newsreader. Here’s a look at the Newsgroup Ninja NNTP server address for each server farm:
- Geo (closest server) – news.newsgroup.ninja
- United States – news-us.newsgroup,ninja
- Netherlands – news-nl.newsgroup,ninja
- Germany – news-de.newsgroup,ninja
You can set your favorite newsreader to connect to any server listed above. We recommend you set up all three servers and prioritize them based on your location. Give the server closest to you the highest priority. Then use the other servers as a fallback and for fills if articles are not available on the primary server. Newsgroup Ninja allows you up to 50 SSL connections. Even so we recommend you use the minimum number of connections necessary to reach your desired download speed. Using any more will put undue strain on your system and may actually slow everything down.
Posting is allowed but it is not enabled by default. If you want to post then you will need to initiate a request through the dashboard for support to enable the feature on your account. There is no additional cost for posting since the service is unlimited. Like most Usenet providers that offer unlimited plans, account sharing is not allowed. While Newsgroup Ninja does not offer a free trial, new users are covered by their 7-day money back guarantee. You can send a message through the dashboard during the first 7 days for a refund if the service doesn’t meet your needs. There really isn’t much more to say about the service. If you’re an experienced Usenet user then Newsgroup Ninja is a solid choice. Otherwise we suggest you take a look at our top Usenet providers to find one that offers additional features (client, search, VPN).
