From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

NetNews-Team Individual.DE

Tue, Sep 30 at 12:57 AM

[English version below]

Sehr geehrte Nutzende des Newsservers News.Individual.DE / News.Individual.NET,

hiermit m||chten wir die Abschaltung des Dienstes zum 30. September 2027 (also in zwei Jahren) ank|+ndigen.

Die Nutzung des Dienstes wird nach diesem Zeitpunkt nicht mehr m||glich sein.

Ab sofort nehmen wir keine neuen Registrierungen f|+r den Dienst News.Individual.DE / News.Individual.NET mehr an.

F|+r Bestandskunden ist eine Nutzung bis zum Betriebsende unabh|nngig von ihrer aktuellen Laufzeit m||glich. Bitte stellen Sie ab sofort alle Zahlungen ein.

Wir bedanken uns f|+r die teils langj|nhrige Nutzung dieses klassischen Dienstes |+ber unseren Server.

Mit freundlichen Gr|+|fen
das News-Team der Freien Universit|nt Berlin
(Bettina Fink, Vera Heinau, Heiko Schlichting)

----------------------------------------------

Dear Users of the news server News.Individual.DE / News.Individual.NET,

We hereby announce the discontinuation of the service as of 30 September 2027 (that is two years from now).

Use of the service will no longer be possible after this date.

Effective immediately, we will no longer accept new registrations for the service News.Individual.DE / News.Individual.NET.

Existing users may continue to use the service until its termination, regardless of their current subscription period. Please do not make any further payments from now on.

We wish to express our sincere gratitude for your rCo often many years of rCo use of this classic internet service via our server.

Sincerely
The News Team of Freie Universit|nt Berlin
(Bettina Fink, Vera Heinau, Heiko Schlichting)

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

<news@individual.de> wrote:

NetNews-Team Individual.DE

Tue, Sep 30 at 12:57 AM

[German version snipped]

Dear Users of the news server News.Individual.DE /
News.Individual.NET,

We hereby announce the discontinuation of the service as of 30
September 2027 (that is two years from now).

Use of the service will no longer be possible after this date.

Effective immediately, we will no longer accept new registrations for
the service News.Individual.DE / News.Individual.NET.

Existing users may continue to use the service until its termination, regardless of their current subscription period. Please do not make
any further payments from now on.

We wish to express our sincere gratitude for your rCo often many years
of rCo use of this classic internet service via our server.

Sincerely
The News Team of Freie Universit|nt Berlin
(Bettina Fink, Vera Heinau, Heiko Schlichting)

Yep, got that e-mail today. It is unclear if I must pay, or not, when
my current yearly subscription expires. My last renewal was March 2025,
and would normally be good for 1 year (March 2026), but the e-mail
suggests I do not need to pay to keep using them until September 2027,
so I'd get another 1-1/2 years for free after which I'd have to change
to a different Usenet provider.

I've used Albasani before its owner died, and then Eternal-September
(evolved from Motzarella), but wanted a more reliable Usenet provider.
In the 7+ years of using Individual, never had a problem with using
them. No downed or unresponsive server, no weird SpamAssassin issues,
no migration issues, etc. Just always there, and usable.

Giganews is way too expensive at $100/year, and EasyNews even more so.
I don't need binary newsgroups, just text-only newsgroups and why ES
(for free) and Individual (paid, but cheap) were reasonable choices. I definitely do NOT need nor want a web-based interface at a Usenet
provider, don't want to use NNTP-to-HTTP gateways to web-based forums,
and don't want e-mail gateways to Usenet. Just plain ol' NNTP, and just
text newsgroups.

There are also Solani and paganini for free. I haven't use Solani
enough to know how it fares against ES. I eventually filtered out all
paganini posts, because they are an unregistered (no account, no login) provider which attracts trolls, peuriles, malcontents, and uber boobs as
did AIOE back when it existed. paganini.bofh became the new Google
Groups. paganini doesn't have a web site. Okay, yes, they have one now (http://paganini.bofh.team/) as a just placeholder due to my complaints
of nowhere to find settings other than from existing users, but it still doesn't list server settings, so still worthless. ES and Solani are
registered providers (account & login required), have usable web sites,
and abusers have something to lose with them.

I went with Individual which was paid, but very cheap, and has been
highly reliable, and responsive. I'd continue paying them 10 euro/year,
but they're leaving Usenet in a couple years. I have 2 years to decide
on a replacement Usenet provider, but figure to start looking around for
equal alternatives. By comparison to Individual, all the paid Usenet
services are far more expensive, even Usenet.farm.

I'm not keen on block accounts, like:

https://billing.blocknews.net/signup.php

Maybe I'd look into them *if* they proved highly reliable as has been Individual. By visiting text-only newsgroups, the quota would last a
very long time. Often these providers don't state at which tier they
operate (2nd, 3rd, 4th, or worse tier), or through whose servers they
submit. Back in 2024, Blocknews/Frugal lost their contract with
Omicron, so there was a prolonged outage. I didn't yet bother to
research what other outages they've had since it'll be 2 years until I
lose Individual.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> wrote:

. . .

Giganews is way too expensive at $100/year,

We know that Giganews is using an older, likely highly modified, News
server that hasn't implemented certain modern features like Injection
headers (and rejecting proto articles with pre-loaded injection headers
for forgery purposes). In any event, if you have no interest in binary
Usenet, there's no reason to consider them.

and EasyNews even more so.
I don't need binary newsgroups, just text-only newsgroups and why ES
(for free) and Individual (paid, but cheap) were reasonable choices. I >definitely do NOT need nor want a web-based interface at a Usenet
provider, don't want to use NNTP-to-HTTP gateways to web-based forums,
and don't want e-mail gateways to Usenet. Just plain ol' NNTP, and just
text newsgroups.

There are also Solani and paganini for free. . . .

I have tried a few times to register with solani but never seem to hit
them during a period in which they are set up to receive new
registrations. Plenty of Usenet users are on solani who signed up a very
long time ago.

I'm not keen on block accounts, like:

https://billing.blocknews.net/signup.php

Others recommend Astraweb.

https://www.astraweb.com/

You've prepaid for 25 Gigabytes, so if you never use binary Usenet, no
matter how long-winded your followups are, it'll take you two decades
before you need to re-up.

. . .

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

On Tue, 30 Sep 2025 11:24:40 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

Yep, got that e-mail today. It is unclear if I must pay, or not, when
my current yearly subscription expires. My last renewal was March 2025,
and would normally be good for 1 year (March 2026), but the e-mail
suggests I do not need to pay to keep using them until September 2027,
so I'd get another 1-1/2 years for free after which I'd have to change
to a different Usenet provider.

You don't have to pay; you can use the server until Sept 30 2027 without
any charge. I already paid for 2026, so I get 2027 for free. Still not a
bad deal.
--
s|b
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

On Tue, 30 Sep 2025 11:24:40 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

There are also Solani and paganini for free.

I've blocked paganini because of trolls. Solani has been in my News
Access Plan for some time, meaning it's used to retrieve headers (and
post, if I want to). I haven't gotten any errors on them.

I also have Astranews, very reliable (up to 50 connections, overkill for
text). I bought a block of 25 GiB for $ 10 in 2013 and I still have
24,95 GiB left. Text messages are only a few kilobytes, so I imagine
it'll take a long time before I'm out of data. Agent is set up to
retrieve headers only. Bodies are retrieved when I set a watch filter.
--
s|b
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

"Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> wrote:

I'm not keen on block accounts, like:

https://billing.blocknews.net/signup.php

Others recommend Astraweb.

https://www.astraweb.com/

You've prepaid for 25 Gigabytes, so if you never use binary Usenet, no
matter how long-winded your followups are, it'll take you two decades
before you need to re-up.

The nearly same 10 euro (~$12.43 USD) that I've paid Individual is close
to the $14.49 that BlockNews charges for 200 GB of non-expiring quota.

Despite your insult, my volume is miniscule compared to the byte total
of articles submitted by all posters. It is not by my volume that I'm concerned about the rate of consumption of pre-purchased quota. It is
by volume of all articles by OTHER posters that I retrieve from those newsgroups where I inhabit or lurk.

Blocknews: 200 GB @ $14.49
Astraweb: 180 GB @ $25.00

I configure my NNTP clients for a max of 2 concurrent connections which
is more than plenty for text-only newsgroups. The enormous number of concurrent connections afforded by Blocknews (100) or Astraweb (50) are meaningless to me since I don't do binaries. Both offer unlimited
speed; i.e., my end is the choke point.

There must be something at Astraweb worth $10 more for 10% less quota.

From https://usenet.rexum.space/tree:
Blocknews uses NetNews to the NetNews backbone.
Astraweb uses Newshosting to Omicron's backbone.
The difference seems insignificant.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

On Tue, 30 Sep 2025 11:24:40 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

Yep, got that e-mail today. It is unclear if I must pay, or not, when
my current yearly subscription expires.

Quote: "Existing users may continue to use the service until its
termination, regardless of their current subscription period. Please
do not make any further payments from now on."

How is that unclear?
--
"The power of accurate observation is frequently called cynicism by
those who don't have it." --George Bernard Shaw
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

| Path: uni-berlin.de!fu-berlin.de!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
| Message-ID: <10bgm0v$3n8vq$1@dont-email.me>

whatever

John R. Doe wrote:

NetNews-Team Individual.DE

[...]

Dear Users of the news server News.Individual.DE / News.Individual.NET,

We hereby announce the discontinuation of the service as of 30
September 2027 (that is two years from now).

Use of the service will no longer be possible after this date.

Effective immediately, we will no longer accept new registrations for
the service News.Individual.DE / News.Individual.NET.

Existing users may continue to use the service until its termination, regardless of their current subscription period. Please do not make
any further payments from now on.

We wish to express our sincere gratitude for your rCo often many years
of rCo use of this classic internet service via our server.

Sincerely
The News Team of Freie Universit|nt Berlin
(Bettina Fink, Vera Heinau, Heiko Schlichting)

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

s|b <me@privacy.invalid> wrote:

I also have Astranews, very reliable (up to 50 connections, overkill for text). I bought a block of 25 GiB for $ 10 in 2013 and I still have
24,95 GiB left.

Maybe you meant Astraweb (also mentioned by Kerman) instead of
Astranews. Astraweb has 25 GB for $10.

Blocknews.net offers 100 GB for $8.99. A buck cheaper at 4 times more
quota which would likely be a lifetime for me in text-only newsgroups,
or until Blocknews dies. Well, I didn't think Individual.net would die, either.

I haven't yet found why Astraweb is better while more expensive with
less quota than Blocknews. From:

https://usenet.rexum.space/tree

Blocknews is tier-1 provider: NetNews service to the NetNews backbone.
Astraweb is tier-2 provider: Newshosting service to Omicron's backbone.

I see you are also using Individual.Net. Why pay if you already have
lots of quota left over from Astraweb? Using Individual might be why
you have little consumption on your Astraweb quota. In 2 years, both of
us lose Individual.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

VanguardLH wrote:

Giganews is way too expensive at $100/year, and EasyNews even more so.

I'd recommend Astraweb, a 25GB block account for a $10 single payment
will last you a lifetime.

-jw-
--
And now for something completely different...
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

issdr <p_u_n_k_i_n_d@yahoo.it> wrote:

| Path: uni-berlin.de!fu-berlin.de!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
| Message-ID: <10bgm0v$3n8vq$1@dont-email.me>

whatever

Yes, that's strange; someone posted our email in a way that makes it look
like the article came from us. We always use our own news server for
posting articles.

However, our real article can be found in another newsgroup:

From: news@individual.net (NetNews Team Individual.NET)
Subject: [2027-09-30] Discontinuation News.Individual.NET
Newsgroups: news.admin.misc,alt.usenet.news-server-comparison
Followup-To: news.admin.misc
Message-ID: <2025-09-30.Discontinuation-News-Individual@fu-berlin.de>

Heiko
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

Heiko Schlichting wrote:

Yes, that's strange; someone posted our email in a way that makes it look like the article came from us. We always use our own news server for
posting articles.

thank you Heiko. sorry to see y'all go.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

Heiko Schlichting <heiko@cis.fu-berlin.de> wrote:

issdr <p_u_n_k_i_n_d@yahoo.it> wrote:

| Path: >uni-berlin.de!fu-berlin.de!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
| Message-ID: <10bgm0v$3n8vq$1@dont-email.me>

whatever

Yes, that's strange; someone posted our email in a way that makes it look >like the article came from us. We always use our own news server for
posting articles.

However, our real article can be found in another newsgroup:

From: news@individual.net (NetNews Team Individual.NET)
Subject: [2027-09-30] Discontinuation News.Individual.NET
Newsgroups: news.admin.misc,alt.usenet.news-server-comparison
Followup-To: news.admin.misc
Message-ID: <2025-09-30.Discontinuation-News-Individual@fu-berlin.de>

You guys are largely responsible for keeping your part of Usenet alive
with a server that was run by people who really liked Usenet and wanted
to provide a good experience to your users.

Thank you.

May I ask? Did your university drop all support? Is there no viable
business case to keep it going? Are you all moving on to other projects?

You'll be missed.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

On Tue, 30 Sep 2025 18:37:07 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

Maybe you meant Astraweb (also mentioned by Kerman) instead of
Astranews. Astraweb has 25 GB for $10.

Yes, of course, Astraweb.

Blocknews.net offers 100 GB for $8.99. A buck cheaper at 4 times more
quota which would likely be a lifetime for me in text-only newsgroups,
or until Blocknews dies. Well, I didn't think Individual.net would die, either.

Never heard of it, but 25 GiB for $3.39 (no expiration) isn't bad.

I haven't yet found why Astraweb is better while more expensive with
less quota than Blocknews. From:

https://usenet.rexum.space/tree

Blocknews is tier-1 provider: NetNews service to the NetNews backbone. Astraweb is tier-2 provider: Newshosting service to Omicron's backbone.

So less/more (binary) headers? What about retention?

I see you are also using Individual.Net. Why pay if you already have
lots of quota left over from Astraweb? Using Individual might be why
you have little consumption on your Astraweb quota. In 2 years, both of
us lose Individual.

I just found out Agent is set up to retrieve headers from only one
server, namely NIN. If I want I can combine servers, but then it would
show binaries (through Astraweb) in non binary newsgroups.

I bought a 25 GiB block from Astraweb in 2013, as a backup to NIN and
because it was cheap ($10) and I thought the price would go up. Since
there is no expiration I thought it would be a good idea. The download I
have is probably by checking out some binaries. I've never gotten into
NZB and nowadays all binaries are encrypted and random file names, so I
don't really need it for binaries.
--
s|b
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

s|b <me@privacy.invalid> wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

Blocknews is tier-1 provider: NetNews service to the NetNews backbone.
Astraweb is tier-2 provider: Newshosting service to Omicron's backbone.

So less/more (binary) headers? What about retention?

I could not find either citing how many newsgroups they currently carry.
The count varies over time, and often depends on their peering
relationships. For example, ES dropped all the microsoft.public.*
newsgroups, but every other Usenet provider I've tried still has them,
and they are NOT dead just because Microsoft decided to leave Usenet
back in 2010. As I recall, there were hundreds or thousands of Hipcrime
(not sure about the name) garbage newsgroups created long ago, and a few providers kepts them, but most purged them, and would not peer them.
For a while, uuhec.net, a remailer, spewed out faked copies of articles
instead of peering them by altering From, MID, and Path headers to
pollute Usenet. Some providers filtered them out, some didn't.

As for retention:

Blocknews: 3720+ (*)
Astraweb: 4000 days

* Blocknews cites retention for binaries, but not specifically for
text-only newsgroups. Astraweb's retention doesn't differentiate.

Neither approach the 30 years going back to Dejanews which Google
acquired, but gradually destroyed searching by using overly greedy
searching, removed the qualifiers, and eventually destroyed their Usenet archive, and then Google left back in Feb 2024 completely eradicating
what was left of that archive.

For me, there isn't much of Usenet that I want that is over 10 years
old. There have been times when waxing on my ancient computer
tribulations when some extremely old articles may be helpful, but rather unimportant overall. Either information becomes stale and irrelevant
with age, or it gets even more precious, but most times the former.

I configure my NNTP client to purge articles over 180 days (6 months)
old. I don't need to compile a local archive of ancient articles.
Threads that old are of no interest to me, so 10 years for Astraweb or Blocknews is far longer retention that I need or want. Some folks want everything ever posted, but I'm not sure anyone has a 40+ year-old
archive to capture everything ever of Usenet.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

On Oct 2, 2025 at 5:31:14rC>PM CDT, "VanguardLH" <V@nguard.LH> wrote:

For me, there isn't much of Usenet that I want that is over 10 years
old. There have been times when waxing on my ancient computer
tribulations when some extremely old articles may be helpful, but rather unimportant overall. Either information becomes stale and irrelevant
with age, or it gets even more precious, but most times the former.

If you enjoy computing history, the archives of net.*, mod.*, and fa.* before The Great Renaming and Usenet-II, along with early articles in comp.*... there is a wealth of knowledge about how many things came to be and are the way they are today (and also how much hasn't changed in 40+ years).

Some folks want everything ever posted, but I'm not sure anyone has a 40+ year-old archive to capture everything ever of Usenet.

"Everything ever" probably not, but some of us have the vast majority of text articles posted since archiving began by Henry Spencer in January 1980.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

Jesse Rehmer <jesse.rehmer@blueworldhosting.com> posted:

If you enjoy computing history, the archives of net.*, mod.*, and fa.* before The Great Renaming and Usenet-II,

What is/was fa.* ?
(I assume it's not what 'antifa' is claimed to oppose? Efno)
--
Colin Macleod ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ https://cmacleod.me.uk

FEED FEED FEED FEED FEED FEED FEED FEED
GAZA GAZA GAZA GAZA GAZA GAZA GAZA GAZA
NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW!
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

Colin Macleod <user7@newsgrouper.org.invalid> wrote or quoted:

What is/was fa.* ?

|Mailing lists from the ARPANET fed into Usenet were
|identified as FA.xxxx newsgroups. Truscott notes that,
|"Only when ucbvax joined the net, did `fa' appear."
|
"On The Early Days of USENET" (1995) - Ronda Hauben


--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

Stefan Ram <ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:

Colin Macleod <user7@newsgrouper.org.invalid> wrote or quoted:

What is/was fa.* ?

|Mailing lists from the ARPANET fed into Usenet were
|identified as FA.xxxx newsgroups. Truscott notes that,
|"Only when ucbvax joined the net, did `fa' appear."

"On The Early Days of USENET" (1995) - Ronda Hauben

Internetwork communication was so incredibly expensive that gating
mailing lists into newsgroups was a method of reducing costs. It was
cheapr for everyone with a mailbox at a particular site to read the
mailing list as a newsgroup rather than receive individual messages sent between networks. LISTSERV also addressed the issue by packaging
messages together to be received at specific sites then expanding them
to be delivered to individual mailboxes. Alas, this would become a tool
abused by Mail spammers.

There was later gated newsgroups from Japan fj.*

Someone around a lot longer than me would have to comment on these
mailing lists. They were long lists of these but I sure don't recall
that either the lists still existed or were still being gated.
Newsgroups gated from lists tended to be listed long after lists were
ended or after the gateways were taken down.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

"Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com> posted:

Stefan Ram <ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:

Colin Macleod <user7@newsgrouper.org.invalid> wrote or quoted:

What is/was fa.* ?

|Mailing lists from the ARPANET fed into Usenet were
|identified as FA.xxxx newsgroups. Truscott notes that,
|"Only when ucbvax joined the net, did `fa' appear."

There was later gated newsgroups from Japan fj.*

I see, thanks both.
--
Colin Macleod ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ https://cmacleod.me.uk

FEED FEED FEED FEED FEED FEED FEED FEED
GAZA GAZA GAZA GAZA GAZA GAZA GAZA GAZA
NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW!
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2