Newsgroups are another service that is quite popular. The idea behind the newsgroups is, there is a list of message bases, through which people world wide exchange ideas, opinions and information. The topics of these newsgroups are varied, and as of the writing of this document, well over 30,000. The names of the newsgroups reflect the topic that is discussed within them. Here are a few sample newsgroup names:

rec.food.cooking - Group for exchanging recipes, cooking tips and so on.

alt.binaries.games.warcraft - Game tips, cheats, add on levels and so on for the commercial game Warcraft.

alt.barney.die.die.die - Some people just don’t like Barney. You can add your support here.

talk.religion.christianity - Religious discussions and so on…

The first part of the group name gives you an idea what general area the group fits into; rec for Recreation, comp for computer and technology related issues and so on. The information that passes through these news groups varies. Microsoft runs their own news server to do support for their various products.

Newsgroups were originally started and used for announcements and so on. If you "post" a message into a newsgroup, you reply to "All", not a specific user as in how e-mail works. There are no such things as private messages either. Anything you post is public for all to see. Therefore:

WARNING: Newsgroups are VERY content sensitive. They may not be appropriate for sensitive viewers. Since it is a public forum, people tend to speak their mind. Foul language is generally prohibited in inappropriate groups, but some of the sex oriented groups tend to be quite raw. If you don’t like the content of a group then don’t join it.

As with the other Internet services, you need a client program, known as a News Reader. It will connect you with a news server, retrieve a list of available newsgroups, retrieve the headers of the messages in a group you select, and allow you to read and post messages back to the news server. There are several popular news reader programs available. Both Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer have their own built in news capabilities also.

Configuring a news reader is quite simple. In its setup or options section (it varies with different readers) you’ll find a place for your personal information, name, e-mail etc. and a place for the news server name. Our news server address is news.durham.net. There is no login name required or passwords. It is a public service that is available to everyone. Below is a sample screen from the news client program, WinVN. Note that the username and password fields are blank and not required by our server:

Once a News Reader is configured, to use it, you have it connect to the news server and retrieve a list of newsgroups. This may take a few minutes since there are thousands. Once the list is complete, you "subscribe" to any groups you find of interest. The term "subscribe" may sound scarry, but it’s not like something you have to pay for like a magazine. When you subscribe to a newsgroup, you tell your News Reader to track the messages that you have read, replied to, posted and so on in the groups you subscribe to. You only have to get the huge list of newsgroups once. Once you’ve subscribed to the groups of your choice, the next time you connect to the news server you just have to get the new headers in your subscribed groups. You can also view messages (known as Articles) in groups you are not subscribed to. The reader just won’t track the messages for you.

There is much information available through the newsgroups, some business sources recreational topics or just dumb stuff. Binary files such as programs and digital pictures are also transmitted through the newsgroups using special encoding methods, which all popular readers support.