Update: November, 2007 – the RIAA has filed suit against Usenet.com claiming copyright infringement. Read this article for more details.
Starting with retention, Usenet.com offers up to 150 days of binary retention in over 120,000 newsgroups. Their server farms consist of two in the United States (east coast and west coast) and another server farm in Europe.
Usenet.com is easier to use now that they consolidated into 2 US server farms accessed via News-East.Usenet.com and News-West.Usenet.com. You use to connect to each of their 20+ servers separately.
Usenet.com offers broadband speeds. The location of the server farms help connection speeds. We connected to the News-East.Usenet.com at over 5 Mbps.
Encryption – Usenet.com offers SSH encryption through Secure-Tunnel. The cost of the add-on service is $99.95 a year.
Usenet.com offers free customized versions of News Rover and Ultraleecher to all customers. They also offer a web gateway which is great for text groups and images. If you happen to already use NewsBin Pro or NewsPro they offer tutorials that walk you through the quick setup for those as well.
Usenet.com offers a one week free Usenet trial. You can download up to 3 Gb in the first week. Metered accounts start at $4.95 a month and unlimited access is $18.95 a month.
Bottom line – Usenet.com is still a decent Usenet service. They use to be one of our favorites. The fact that encrypotion through Secure-Tunnel is an extra expense and their current legal woes leads us to recommend looking at other unlimited providers.
