I have a gripe with Wanadoo, which is that they stopped providing Usenet newsgroup access as of last March 18th. Suddenly, arbitrarily, and completely without warning. After I'd been reading newsgroups on news.freeserve.co.uk for eight years or so.
Since then I've tried to find other news servers but I'm having trouble - the best free news server out there, news.infoave.net, appears to have entirely withdrawn its free service, and nntp.aioe.org appears to be down.
I now find that BT do not provide a news server of their own if I should want to change to join them. This I found, hidden away in their website, after doing a search on the word "newsgroup". When calling their helplines, it took me half an hour to establish that they appear to employ (a) nobody who understands the meaning of the word "newsgroup" and (b) remarkably few people whose first language is English.
Can anyone recommend a UK-based ISP that includes, as part of its package, a decent newsfeed from Usenet newsgroups? Or do I have to resort to Google Groups, whose interface is positively foul?
(I'm particularly interested in such newsgroups as alt.fan.pratchett, alt.games.elder-scrolls and similar.)
It also turns out that the free news server aioe.org was only down temporarily and is back up again. I'm still ticked off with Wanadoo. And with BT for not knowing what Usenet newsgroups even *are*.
Mind you I'm also pi**ed off with both Wanadoo and BT for having people on their helplines who clearly do not even speak English as a first language.
I've just joined this forum today and completely agree with JLE and have experienced exactly the same problems with Wanadoo.
I'd be grateful if someone could tell me what other news servers I could use. I like to download the odd mp3 (used to be from groups like alt.binaries.sounds.mp3 etc.). However, if I have to change ISP and pay more then I'd like to have the option of downloading dvd/movies/tv series such as Lost. I'm currently paying £17.99 for what is now merely a glorified email account.
Do I cancel wanadoo and change to another ISP? I've called Telewest/Blueyonder and they don't provide a service in my area. When I called BT, TalkTalk and Virgin.Net, they didn't even know what a newsgroup was! I'm so disappointed in the manner wanadoo withdrew their newsgroups - when I called them in March, the advisor I spoke to didn't have a clue that they had withdrawn the service.
I'd appreciate any advice as I'm completely fed up with trying to find a news server where I can download mp3s and possibly movies. It seems every ISP wants you to sign up with them but they can't tell you which - if any - newsgroups they provide access to.
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
