Losing access to newsgroup

Are you actually losing your newsgroups or is this some of the spam that has been going around. I have seen the heading message on almost all of my newsgroups. Unless you get the message from AT&T itself, I wouldn't worry too much right away.

Debbi > AT&T posted a message yesterday that they would no longer be supporting

If you are really losing ATT access to newsgroups, there are some free services (Motzarella, Aioe, to name a couple) that will allow you to access RCTQ. If you need a group that isn't part of their service, Supernews is good and not expensive. :)

I use news.individual.net - costs me $14.11 a year and is very reliable. I know several other people on rctq use it too, that's how I found out about it.

Donna in SW Idaho

I use news.albasani.net and have found it very user-friendly... keeps messages available for a long time... and it's FREE!

I keep thinking I must be dense or something, but using Google is absolutely the easiest way of reading and responding to the posts in this list. On the side of the page is a list of all the posts with new responses. That lets me keep track of older posts that are still active. A quick glance shows me the poster, the subject and how many people have jumped into the stew.

I have several other news groups that I absolutely hate because of the clunky nature of the interface. Wish they were all Google groups.

Sunny

I really enjoyed using Google too Sunny even though I am now using OE.

Dee in Oz

I agree. I have used Google for years. I have heard others complain about it and laud their own choices. The only times I have disliked using other browsers for access, is when I was using other than my own computers. I guess it is just a case of what you get used to.

John

Google doesn't allow access to binary newsgroups. Therefore, I stay with news.indivicual.net.

Donna in SW Idaho

I use the reader at news.motzarella.org It downloads right in my Outlook Express email program under "newsgroups". 'Sides that, it's free! ME-Judy

Years ago, AOL dropped access to usenet newsgroup. I went to GOOGLE, clicked on newsgroups, typed in the exact newsgroup name (the second time ;0 ), bookmarked rctq on my browsers, and have had no trouble. You do have to register to post, but you can read without registering. I am using a MAC laptop with free internet at my local library or dial- up with an external modem, Safari or Firefox as my browsers . . . . w in northern ca

Pardon my ignorance, but what is a binary newsgroup??

Sunny

I found using Google Groups for RTCQ to be just fine. However, I also read alt.support.diabetes, and it has an incredible number of trolls that really need to be filtered out, so I use motzarella.

Best regards, Michelle in NV

In usenet parlance, pictures are "binaries".

It is a way of posting pictures on usnet and other primarily text fourms.

Those occasional forever long posts that are just a block of letters and numbers are most often binary format. Most newsreaders can translate them, but you have to tell them too.

Back when everybody was on dial-up, specific groups were formed to post binaries to. Since binary files are huge compared to plain text, nobody wanted them in regular groups where many people were still paying for service by the minute. As many people are still on dial-up and it can take an hour or more to download a binary file on a dial up connection, non-text posts are still supposed to go to the binary groups or the newer multi-media groups.

Some servers do not carry binary groups, or any other non-text groups. Some of them because of the massive amount of bandwidth they take up, some in an effort to avoid pRon. In a global community, where the age of consent is all over the map, and laws covering nude or suggestive photos are likewise all over the map, keeping such stuff legal everywhere is an impossible task.

NightMist

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I'll be checking them all out & hopefully prepared when & if it does happen! I had not considered that the AT & T posting to the newsgroup may have been spam. DH said he got a similar posting in a fly fishing newsgroup that he subscribes to, so I took it to be the real deal!

Pauline Northern California

Comcast did this a while back. I'm paying $7.99 a month for Giganews. Great access. No problems.

Lenore

So it's all about the money, huh!!

Pauline Northern California

tools/accounts/news/add put news.aioe.org for the server to access thru outlook express and i imagine other windows programs. free, easy, most posts seem to come thru tho nothing is full proof as all usenet posts have to go thru various servers around the world on its way back to each one of us. ya never know when one server might be offline doing maintenence or some other really important piece of garbage and your post or someone elses incoming might vanish into cyberspace. hey, its free. j.

"Pauline" wrote... So it's all about the money, huh!!

"lenorel95" wrote...