While Usenet is still a vital if small part of Net culture, quite a few servers got shut down or went commercial recently. This list attempts to give an overview of servers which can be accessed for free. Registration is usually necessary for servers which allow posting (in order to have some sort of abuse management).
This page is limited to NNTP servers, so no Web interfaces or UUCP providers. Note that the servers with binary data usually put some severe limitations on the number of connections and the amount of bandwidth to be used in parallel. For fast access to binaries a pay server is required.
If you follow the group alt.free.newsservers you might learn about additional servers. Sometimes, admins of commercial news providers want to test a new machine and publish its address in that group. Attentive readers will then enjoy fast (more or less) access to binary newsgroups, although only for a while.
| Name of service | Location | Host name | Orientation / hierarchies / [own hierarchy] | # groups | # conn | Binaries? | Read-only? | Accounts? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AIOE | Milan, Italy | nntp.aioe.org | [aioe.*] | 41069 | 2 | No | No | No |
| Albasani | Frankfurt am Main, Germany | news.albasani.net | Hierarchies [albasani.*] | 45925 | 4 | Some | No | R/W |
| Cnntp.org | Düsseldorf, Germany | news.cnntp.org | hierarchies | 4 | No | No | R/W | |
| Datemas | Karlsruhe, Germany | news.datemas.de | 27994 | 4 | No | No | R/W | |
| Dotsrc.org Usenet (formerly news.sunsite.dk) | Aalborg, Denmark | news.dotsrc.org | Software development. | 4690 | No | No | R/W | |
| Freebin | USA | freebin.readnews.com, freebin-auth.readnews.com | 2 | Yes | Yes | Arbitrary login/password combination | ||
| Motzarella | Berlin, Germany | news.motzarella.org | Hierarchies [motzarella.*] | R/W | ||||
| Readfreenews (free service by Octanews) | St. Paul (MN), USA | biggulp.readfreenews.net | [octanews.*] | 64982 | 1 | Yes | Yes | — |
| allnews.readfreenews.net | [octanews.*] | 33697 | No | — | ||||
| news.readfreenews.net | [octanews.*] does not honor cancels | 33777 | No | |||||
| Yottanews | USA | free.yottanews.com | [yottanews.*] | 42077 | 1 | Yes | Yes | R |
Please tell me about updates or other free news servers you might know!