Newsgroups

Newsgroups are (apart from IRC) probably the oldest form of file sharing / downloading / P2P(ish) I know of.

I've used newsgroups as long as I've used computers, back in the days of outlook express newsgroups I had access to 20,000+ newsgroups although they weren't brilliant.

About 5 years ago when I moved up to broadband with Pipex, I had access to their newsgroups, again more than 20,000 and again not brilliant,
I then tried out Easynews, the first difference being I had to pay (Yes Lee, Pay !!!!) for this, $9.98 per month for 4Gb usage per month, however there were more groups and the retention was 30 odd days, the retention meant the files stayed on the servers longer and therefore had better availability for everyone.

Over the years the price has stayed the same, but the usage increased to 6Gb, 10Gb and now 20Gb per month.

I have not had a single problem with Easynews. the search pages are great, the Zip Manager is great and all in all, I would and have recommended him to anyone.

NOW...
I read on NewZbin, Giganews, a similar service had a retention of 120 days, which they have now increased to 200 days.

they also have a different levels of usage plans

• Bronze - 2Gb/Month for $7.99
• Sliver - 25Gb/Month for $12.99
• Platinum -Unlimited/Month for $24.99
• Diamond - Unlimited/Month (plus SSL) for $29.99 ($19.99 for first Month)

I'm not, and never have been sure of the legal implications of newsgroups, you can download all types of files from newsgroups as you can with torrents etc, I guess the difference being you are not uploading files, which made P2P illegal.

I am not yet tempted, unlimited access and longer retention just mean my broadband connection get hammered more, giving the ISPs more reason and justification for limiting & throttling my download speed.