Using Usenet in 2020? Here are our favorite providers

If you’re searching for the best Usenet provider to serve as your gateway into the world of newsgroups and binary downloads, look no further than Newshosting. With 12 years of retention, over 99.99% completion rate, 256-Bit SSL Encryption, and a free VPN and Newsreader, you won’t find a more reliable option. Yet some Usenet providers beat Newshosting in specific categories like cost, download speeds, and privacy, making your choice more difficult than you might have expected. We’ve broken down the best choice for each provider category; plus, for readers who aren’t exactly sure what Usenet is, we’ve compiled everything you need to know below to get started with Usenet.

The best Usenet providers, at a glance

Newshosting — Best Overall: Everything you need in one convenient package.
Giganews — Best Premium: Justifies its cost with an excellent VPN and data speeds.
UsenetExpress — Best Usenet Block Provider: Pay upfront for backup data downloads.
Eweka — Best for Fast Downloads and Retention: This provider reaches U.S. buyers using fiber connections.
TweakNews — Best for High Completion Rates: Aln excellent 99.5% completion rate and free VPN and newsreader.
NewsDemon — Best Reseller for Cheap Unlimited Data: The same coverage as our best pick, but at a much cheaper deal.
Usenet.Farm — Best for Privacy: Get Usenet access without divulging any personal information.

What are the best Usenet providers?

When picking out a Usenet provider, the first thing to consider is that most Usenet regulars employ more than one provider at once. These companies regularly offer discounts as a way to get you hooked on their servers, and different Usenet providers offer thousands of different newsgroups that the others may not have. So when looking through our list, don’t stop once you’ve found the first provider you like. There may be room for more than one in your life.

Still, you’ll want a primary account for accessing the newsgroups, and Newshosting should be the first option you investigate because it comes equipped with the newsreader and VPN you need to dive right into Usenet. If, however, you want to pick your own newsreader or a great VPN yourself, NewsDemon essentially sells the same product (minus the freebie software) at a solid discount.

Do you care about old archived conversations from years past, or are you mainly looking for a torrent alternative for recent content? Are you a Usenet rookie that wants an all-in-one package, or do you just want a solitary Usenet provider so you can choose a VPN or newsreader for yourself? This guide should help answer those questions.

The best Usenet providers

1. Newshosting (From $10/month)
2. Giganews (From $10/month)
3. UsenetExpress (From $20)
4. Eweka (From €7.00/month)
5. TweakNews (From €5.83/month)
6. NewsDemon (From $3/month)
7. Usenet.Farm (From €4.95/month)

1. Newshosting: Best Overall Usenet Provider

Bottom line: For years, Newshosting has remained the most respected name in the Usenet provider field, thanks to one of the best retention streaks you can find for binary files, a free newsreader with file searching and previews included, and a VPN unlocked at the highest tier.

Pros:

12-year retention
Up to 60 connections
Unlimited downloads and download speed
Free Newshosting Newsreader app
Free VPN with top plan

Cons:

No cryptocurrency payment option
Resellers can offer better deals

Newshosting Lite	$10/month
Newshosting Unlimited	$12.95/month
Newshosting XL Powerpack	$15.83/month

Every year, new Usenet providers pop up promising a decade of archived content, but it’s not clear if they can live up to their promises, or if they’re just referring to text retention and not binary retention. What you should look out for is a company that has actually been running its Usenet business for over a decade, and has held onto 99.99% of content during that span (not counting files taken down by DMCA requests). Whatever you upload to Newshosting, you can rest assured it’ll stay there for a long time.

Newshosting gives Usenet rookies all the tools they need to get started, but Usenet veterans will also get all of the specs they’ll want for more advanced tricks like scheduled or automatic downloads at max bandwidth.

Even with its cheapest plan, Newshosting gives you what every self-respecting Usenet service should provide: a 14-day free trial, 256-bit encryption, over 100,000 uncensored newsgroups, and “Unlimited” speeds, which means it will push your downloads as fast as your router will allow. You also receive a free version of the Newshosting Newsreader (available for Mac, PC, and Linux), a tool that helps you find NZBs to download and previews photos and videos in the app so you don’t get tricked into downloading something bad.

Finally, with the top plan, you get free access to the PrivadoVPN, which will help preserve your privacy. This plan will admittedly set you back a fair amount per month, and if you already have one of our recommended VPNs you may want to stick with that instead. It’s also true that you’ll find a veritable swarm of resellers of Newshosting’s server data like NewsDemon offering less impressive specs at a good discounted monthly rate.

Best Overall

Newshosting

$10/month for Newshosting Lite
$12.95/month for Newshosting Unlimited
$15.83/month for Newshosting XL Powerpack

Tough to beat

Newshosting is an old pro at UseNet and will give you the tools you need to fully explore and take advantage of Usenet.

2. Giganews: Best Premium Usenet Provider

Bottom line: In business since 1994, Giganews is a reputable provider with good security, an excellent partnered VPN, and a free browser-based newsreader and search engine. Unfortunately, it’s a bit too expensive to upgrade to strong data and connection performance, and its retention is disappointing.

Pros:

VyprVPN Premium
Most varied plan options
Header download compression
Mimo Usenet browser and search engine

Cons:

Expensive fee for unlimited plans
Only 3+ years retention
Only 20 connections except for top plan

Giganews Bronze	$9.99/month
Giganews Platinum	$19.99/month
Giganews Diamond	$21.99/month

Giganews has 17 years of text pages saved, more than any other option on our list, so it’s a good choice if you want full access to every discussion board made over that stretch of time. However, it only has 3+ years of binary retention — less than any other plan on this list. This means that Giganews prioritizes new files and actively swaps out old ones, which may not matter if you only want access to the latest content.

With the more affordable plans, you only get somewhere between 5GB and 50GB of storage per month. If you run out of data, you can choose to have your next billing month start early to get more bandwidth, rather than be stuck with an unusable account until the month ends.

With the Diamond plan, you get access to the VyprVPN Premium, which comes with five simultaneous connections, Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP), Layer Two Tunneling Protocol (L2TP), IPsec, OpenVPN, a NAT firewall to protect your network, and the Chameleon protocol for subverting VPN blocks. Unfortunately, that plan will cost you a good chunk of money per month.

Mimo, Usenet’s Java-based browser for Mac or PC, is a free accessory for all accounts. With it, you can search Giganews’ servers or Usenet in general for newsgroups, headers, or posts, which can help you know if the service is missing something you want. Then, you can download binary files. The browser has PAR2 verification and recovery to make sure anything you download isn’t corrupted, along with automatic RAR expansion.

In the end, what makes Giganews stand out is that it has multiple servers in the U.S. and EU for low latency in most areas, and full-speed access for its limited selection of binary files instead of slower speeds for the older content, which some providers do automatically. It also claims to connect with multiple backbones besides the one it owns, which helps to expand its newsgroup coverage beyond the average.

Best Premium Usenet Provider

Giganews

$9.99/month for Giganews Bronze plan
$19.99/month for Giganews Platinum plan
$21.99/month for Giganews Diamond plan

Lowest latency

With Giganews, you’ll push your download speeds to the limit and get one of 200,000 IPs from over 50 countries through your VPN.

3. UsenetExpress: Best Usenet Block Provider

Bottom line: This Tier 1 provider offers a cheap monthly account with plenty of connections and a complimentary VPN. However, we think UsenetExpress has the most promise as an affordable Block backup for users that want more coverage than their primary account can reach. Its access to a supposed 140,000+ newsgroups stands far above other providers.

Pros:

Block account option
140,000 newsgroups
Can upgrade to 150 connections
Can pay with Bitcoin
Included VitalVPN

Cons:

No complimentary newsreader
Retention time estimate is vague

Usenet Express Block	$20
Usenet Express Yearly Unlimited	$90/month

There’s no real Google for Usenet or one company every user trusts to bring you the best search results. Usenet regulars frequently invest in two or more providers because it’s never clear which company’s servers will have what you want, and you can sometimes get cheap sales on Blocks of coverage — a set number of gigabytes that never expires, for one upfront fee instead of a monthly one.

UsenetExpress is worth considering as your Block backup thanks to the option to buy 500GB for a mere $20. Founded in 2017, this company has greatly expanded its reach in a short time by making deals with other ISPs to grow its newsgroup coverage well beyond the average. As a new company, its retention is low, but UsenetExpress claims 94% of file requests are fulfilled by its own spools, meaning most users are using its services for recent content while finding older content through other services.

We should note that UsenetExpress is worth considering for its cheap subscription as well. With it, you get unlimited access to the same 140,000 newsgroups across multiple backbones, as well as a complimentary VPN. Plus, you can pay for the service via Bitcoin if you care about anonymity. You will, however, have to find your own newsreader to search through its archives.

Best Usenet Block Provider

UsenetExpress

$20 for Usenet Express Block plan
$90/month for Usenet Express Yearly Unlimited plan

A cheap chunk of data

UsenetExpress is a great entry-level service for folks who want a wide-ranging backup and have their own favorite newsreader.

4. Eweka: Best Usenet Provider for Fast Downloads and Retention

Bottom line: Eweka is a Tier 1 provider with all-around superb retention, completion, and newsgroup quantity based in the EU. You get up to 300Mbps download speeds with unlimited access and a free newsreader, but you’ll need to invest in your own VPN. It respects NTD takedown notices but not DMCA.

Pros:

12-year retention and climbing
125,000+ Newsgroups for good breadth
Newsreader included
No DMCA takedowns
Self-managed EU network and US fiber connections

Cons:

Only 20 connections max
No VPN included
Only a seven-day trial

High-Speed Subscription

€7/month

Eweka is unapologetically catered to EU buyers, hence the price in Euros and the multiple server locations in Amsterdam, London, Frankfurt, and more. However, North American buyers get access to fiber connections through its trans-Atlantic backbone, so your download speeds should still be fast.

Like Newshosting, Eweka has a full 12-year-and-climbing retention of most Usenet newsgroups and claims to have at least a 15,000 newsgroup advantage on them. Both providers are owned by the same parent company but run off different backbones, so many users subscribe to both to get a wider range of coverage. Plus, Eweka responds to NTD takedown notifications but not DMCA ones, so anything you can’t find on a U.S.-based server farm may still be available in the EU.

With any Eweka subscription, you get a free copy of Newslazer, a third-party newsreader for PC, Mac, and Linux. With it, you can search for files or newsgroups, bookmark your faves, adjust your connections and max download speeds (either to maximize speeds or to avoid throttling your other web searches), turn on automatic previews or safe search, and more.

Eweka advertises its fast downloads as a major perk, but keep in mind that you can only get 20 connections with any plan, where most unlimited plans offer 30 or more. This could limit your ability to download multiple files at once. Also, you’ll want to research one of our top VPN picks, as Eweka doesn’t bundle one with any plan.

Best Usenet Provider for Fast Downloads and Retention

Eweka

€7.00/month for High-Speed Subscription

Eureka! We’ve found a good provider

Eweka offers excellent speed and other specs that compete with some of the best providers on the market, but for a cheaper price.

5. TweakNews: Best Usenet Provider for High Completion Rates

Bottom line: After recently upgrading its retention from 2,500 to 4,200 in about a year, TweakNews sealed up its major weakness and solidified its status as one of the best providers available. Whatever files you find with the complimentary newsreader should be able to download it thanks to its 99.9% completion rating.

Pros:

Varied subscription and block pricing
No DMCA takedowns
Unlimited downloads during trial
99.9% completion rate
Newsreader and VPN included

Cons:

Block plans are a bit pricey
Download speeds capped at lower tiers

Block package	€45
Ultimate plan + VPN	€ 9.07/month

While other companies restrict unlimited data downloads to their premier plans, TweakNews allows unlimited at its cheapest price point but does restrict your download speeds and connections. The first plan offers 50Mbit, 30 connections, and no VPN, while the top plan comes with the VPN, 60 connections, and goes as fast as your internet plan can handle.

Lower download speeds may not be a problem with the free UsenetWire app, which lets you schedule and automate downloads. You can also search Usenet by rating, file type, and binary only; browse for and bookmark newsgroups; adjust your number of connections and download speed limit; turn on safe search; and so on. If this list is giving you déjà vu, UsenetWire appears to be the same as Eweka’s Newslazer, rebranded but with the same language and list of features on their respective websites. Unsurprising, given both providers have the same parent company, Omicron.

TweakNews also offers pre-paid Block plans to download between 10GB and 500GB, making it a solid backup option if you want access to the Base IP backbone but already have another primary account in mind. We will say that the pricing for these Blocks is a little expensive compared to other options we found like UsenetExpress, but TweakNews has superior completion and retention, so it may be worth the extra cost.

Note: We were unable to confirm the current count of newsgroups as of publication, but will update once we get the number.

Best Usenet Provider for High Completion Rates

TweakNews

€ 45.00 for 500GB block package
€ 9.07/month for Ultimate plan + VPN

Tweaking its retention rates

TweakNews offers versatile and affordable pricing for excellent specs, making it a respectable option as a main or backup provider.

6. NewsDemon: Best Usenet Reseller for Cheap Unlimited Data

Bottom line: Sometimes you just want to pay less money, and Usenet resellers cater to buyers who want access but can’t afford the top companies’ prices. Out of the many resellers out there, we chose NewsDemon because, as of now, it’s maintained the quality of its product while others tend to skimp over time.

Pros:

Very affordable plans that all include VPN
Offer to price match any reseller competitor
Option for 4000GB Block
12-year retention time
50 connections and 99% completions at cheapest plan

Cons:

No complimentary newsreader
Not a Tier 1 provider

Unlimited + VPN	$6/month
Price match	See NewsDemon

NewsDemon is a reseller of our top overall pick. It runs its business off of Newshosting’s servers in the U.S. and EU, and thus has the same 12-year retention time and 99%+ completion percentage. It just sells its access to the servers and newsgroups for cheaper than Newshosting does.

While it used to give buyers access to a free newsreader, now NewsDemon buyers will have to fend for themselves in that area. However, you do get access to SlickVPN for free with every plan. Amazingly, SlickVPN appears to cost the same annually as a basic NewsDemon plan does, so you’re essentially getting a free VPN with Usenet access or free Usenet access with your VPN, depending on how you look at it.

There isn’t much of a difference between buying a reseller’s product, or the provider’s original product. The main difference is that, as a reseller, it can choose to end its relationship with one company and switch to another server farm with worse retention and newsgroup coverage in the future. We find this to be an unlikely, worst-case scenario, but it’s worth noting.

One useful note about pricing. You can pay NewsDemon’s advertised prices, but you can also check out its Price Matching page, where it tracks the latest deals from other resellers and promises to match their offers 100% of the time.

Best Usenet Reseller for Cheap Unlimited Data

NewsDemon

$6/month for Unlimited + VPN
Price matched deals can be found here

Lower price, same quality

Provided you don’t mind finding your own newsreader, NewsDemon is a cheap, reliable alternative to Newshosting.

7. Usenet.Farm: Best Usenet Provider for Privacy

Bottom line: Farm doesn’t have the best retention or free perks compared to other picks — you’ll have to pay for your own newsreader and VPN — but it stands out by giving you the option to pay for it anonymously if privacy is an important concern to you. It also lets you try out its service without giving them your payment information.

Pros:

Affordable monthly prices for plans
Good price on 500GB block
No DMCA takedowns
10GB free trial with just an email address
Account sharing allowed

Cons:

Technically no “unlimited” data plans
No free newsreader or VPN
Average retention

“To the Max” plan	€7.95/month
Prepaid 500GB block	€15

Usenet providers can be hacked just like any other company, and even if they promise to protect your data, you’re never fully certain what information they’re keeping about you. With Farm, the company promises to only save your name and country; and, if you use Bitcoin to pay, it won’t even have that information. It does track your overall activity, but not what you read or post.

To start, you provide an email (one that keeps you anonymous, if that matters to you) and you immediately get access to 10GB of data for free, with no payment information. Once you’ve burned through that, Farm offers two monthly plans: one with throttled data speeds and a 4TB soft cap that, when surpassed, slows your downloads to a crawl, and a still affordable plan with unlimited speeds and a 6TB soft cap. With the second option, you also have the option to share your account with one other user.

With its tracked performance information, Farm creates a dashboard that keeps you apprised of your number of articles downloaded, articles not found, articles posted, bytes downloaded, bytes uploaded, and data space remaining for the month. With this data, you’ll be able to see if you’re getting your money’s worth or if you fail to find one too many articles. Any data it saves about you is made anonymous after three months, or after one month if you cancel (though, technically, you only need to stop payment, as there are no automatic payment options).

Best Usenet Provider for Privacy

Usenet.Farm

€7.95 for “To the Max” plan
€15 for Prepaid 500GB Block

Cheap monthly or upfront costs

Farm makes it easy to browse Usenet without worrying about personal info but requires you to pick a VPN and newsreader yourself.

What is Usenet and why do I need it?

In an alternate reality, the world wide web could have spawned from Usenet, rather than the Arpanet network that became the Internet. In 1979, Duke University grad students Jim Ellis and Tom Truscott formulated their plans for a network comprised of newsgroups hosted on servers. Usenet participants could post or respond to articles in a variety of categories like “alt.” and “talk.” Responses were threaded so topics could branch out indefinitely into varying discussions and subtopics.

The closest modern-day equivalent would be Reddit, if its subreddit threads could spawn new sub-subreddits and it lacked a voting system to organize content. Nowadays, Usenet is used less for conversation, and many of Usenet’s news threads can now be found online using your web browser as a gateway. Google Groups, for example, has an archive of USENET posts that are retained indefinitely (more on retention rates later).

Newsgroups and text-based discussions are just one side of Usenet, however. Users can also save binary files to Usenet servers that can contain video, audio, or any other file type you can think of. These files are usually too large to fit inside a single Usenet article, so they are split across as many articles as it takes to host them; then, an NZB file is created that points out where all of the articles containing the binary code can be found, and how they slot together.

To find, download and convert these binary files into something your PC can use, you’ll need a Usenet provider to access Usenet servers where the files are stored; a binary-enabled newsreader that can interpret NZB files; and an indexer database of NZB files that lists out all of the files on Usenet that are available to download. Armed with these tools, Usenet users can use the platform as an alternative to torrenting content (legal or otherwise).

Is Usenet legal?

We at Android Central don’t condone using backdoor channels like Usenet or BitTorrent to acquire copyrighted material illegally. We also weren’t born yesterday: one of the primary draws of these types of programs is to view or download content that, for whatever reason, you can’t get ahold of through regular methods.

Built-in, no-log VPN software is meant to protect users from having their identities and IPs exposed, so they don’t face consequences. Moreover, many Usenet buyers purposefully choose one provider that abides by U.S. DMCA laws, and another that only abides by EU NTD laws. That way, if content is taken down on one server, it may slip through the cracks in another region.

In the end, Usenet is perfectly legal, but if you upload or download copyrighted content, and the copyright holder finds out, you could face repercussions. Check the legal page of any Usenet provider you pick, but most will suggest that if they receive a court order asking for information about your identity, they are required to provide it.

What’s the difference between Usenet and torrent websites?

Torrenting websites are full of “leechers” and “seeders”. The speed of leechers’ downloads depends on the number of seeders in the torrent swarm; the more people trying to download something, the faster you’ll get ahold of it. Once you torrent something, though, you’re complicit in disseminating that thing to other users, which could land you in trouble. Many regular torrent users invest in a VPN for this reason.

With Usenet, your download speeds are entirely dependent on your provider and your internet plan. Giganews, for example, promises “uncapped” download speeds by pairing yours with the nearest, fastest server in its network. You’ll always have the same Mbps rate for each download, no matter how popular or unpopular it is. Even better, you don’t need to waste any bandwidth uploading the file for the next user.

Many Usenet providers bundle in automatic VPN software — so your identity is kept from the websites you visit — as well as software for unzipping files and scanning them for viruses. Essentially, Usenet makes downloading content easier, more private, and safer.

The main positive of torrenting is, of course, that you don’t need to pay for servers to access content — though you will want to pay for a VPN and antivirus software.

How is one Usenet provider different from another?

There are hundreds of thousands of newsgroups worldwide, and they can (mostly) be found on any Usenet server. However, every bit of data saved — especially GBs of binary data — is expensive to maintain. So, Usenet providers with limited server space delete older Usenet files to make room for new ones. The amount of time that newsgroup data is stored before being overwritten represents the provider’s retention rate.

Some providers’ retention rates continue to grow every day because they spool their files so that they remain available indefinitely on intermediate servers. Because of this, providers like Newshosting and TweakNews have high completion rates, a term referring to the percentage of total Usenet posts ever made that can be found on its platform. They spool their data first before overriding it, so almost nothing is ever lost.

Most providers will advertise newsgroup collections of 100,000 or more, but one provider’s newsgroup library won’t be the same as another’s…unless they share the same backbone and parent company.

Companies like Giganews, UsenetExpress, and Usenet.Farm are Tier 1 providers, meaning they all have their own server farms that they don’t share with any other provider. However, a large majority of providers are all owned by the same company (Omicron), and many of these providers use the same servers with the same selection of newsgroups. They differ in areas like download speed and data limits, but in the end, you’ll find virtually the same files with either company.

Many Usenet fans pay for more than one provider, to get better coverage so they don’t miss out on anything. If you decide to go that route, you should make sure that the two companies you pick have different backbones, to make sure you’re not paying double for the same content.

How to pick the best Usenet provider

We chose Newshosting for our best Usenet provider pick due to all-around excellence in a variety of categories. For one, it confirms on its site that it has a binary retention time of 4416 days. Many providers will boast of a 10-12-year retention rate, without specifying that this only refers to text posts that are incredibly easy to store.

For another, we like the free Newshosting Newsreader desktop app for Windows, Apple, and Linux. Usenet is only useful if you can find topics and communities that interest you, and this program makes it easy for beginners to find content like NZBs. In your search results, you get video and image previews, so you know what to expect before you download anything. You can even schedule auto searches and auto downloads based on your favorite search terms, or bookmark your favorite pages or newsgroups.

Despite being a well-rounded product, Newshosting doesn’t outshine its competition in every area. Some offer faster data downloads or unlimited data at a lower price point. Others offer more detailed VPN controls or access to more Newsgroups.

If you’re new to Usenet and can’t decide which Usenet provider is best for you, focus on these criteria:

1. Consider Block pricing (at first)

If you’re new to Usenet, it may take you some time to get a hang of the system. Most of our recommended companies offer 24/7 customer support, and the Usenet subreddit is full of helpful experts and beginner’s guides. But mastering a platform you’ve never used before is no small feat.

Technically, Usenet providers offer two-week or month-long free trials precisely so you have time to get the hang of things and see if you like Usenet. However, depending on how busy you are with work or other life responsibilities, that may not be enough time. So we recommend you start with a small Block plan from a provider like UsenetExpress, TweakNews, or Usenet.Farm.

Once you’ve burned through 50GB, 500GB, or whatever quantity you pick, you’ll have a better idea of whether you need an unlimited data plan or if you’re fine with a data cap in exchange for a lower monthly fee.

2. Make sure you have servers nearby

We did our best to choose providers with servers in both North America (NA) and the European Union (EU), but some solid providers consolidate their business in one region or the other. For the highest Mbps rates, you won’t want to deal with distance-based latency.

You’ll also want to make the best possible use of your connections to optimize your available bandwidth. Your newsreader will typically use just one connection by default, which won’t generate very fast downloads, but you can increase the number of connections until your bandwidth hits the maximum that your internet can handle. Just don’t try adding all of your connections: too many at once can slow down your download speeds.

You may think 100,000+ newsgroups would be enough, but most hardcore Usenetters regularly subscribe to multiple providers at once to improve their coverage. As we mentioned previously, and as referenced in the chart above, different providers come from different backbones that in turn run off of different servers. The more backbones you subscribe to, the more Usenet coverage you’ll have.

Subscribing to Nesthosting and NewsDemon would be nonsensical since both pull from the same retained newsgroups. But if you subscribed to Eweka and TweakNews, you would expand your coverage even though they’re both owned by the same company.

Unless you truly plan on using dozens of gigabytes every month across multiple accounts, we recommend that you start with one subscription, and then pay for a Block membership with another provider. These give you a flat amount of gigabytes that never expire, so it can serve as a backup for months, even years, off of a single one-time payment.

What are the best Usenet providers for beginners?

Assuming this wave of information hasn’t put you off from giving Usenet a try, then you, a beginner to the world of Usenet, should start with a low price month-to-month plan or small block rather than an annual, premium plan. Unlimited data and a discounted yearly price are great if you plan on using Usenet every day to watch, download or upload a ton of content. But Usenet isn’t going to replace your Netflix binges, gaming marathons, or whatever else you’ve been doing with your time up until now, at least not immediately. See if Usenet is for you first before putting a bunch of money down.

To pick the best Usenet providers for beginners, we focused on completion rate, price, and a bundled newsreader and VPN to make things as straightforward as possible.

The top 3 Usenet providers for your first Usenet experience

TweakNews — Start with its unlimited download free trial to dive into the world of Usenet; then you can choose between a cheap monthly plan or small data Block that will help you ease into things. Its high retention and completion percentage will let you explore the whole history of Usenet, and the bundled reader will introduce you to newsgroups and binary downloads.
Eweka — This pick is predicated on the fact that you may already have a solid VPN. In that case, Eweka offers month-to-month plans with high retention and unlimited downloads at a low price. The negative will be the low number of connections and data speed cap, but you can transition to the annual plan once you’ve explored Usenet enough (through the free newsreader) to be sure you’re ready to invest more time and money in it.
NewsDemon — You may transition to a tier 1 provider once you know more about what you’re looking for, but to start, there’s no reason to sign yourself up for full-price plans. Check the price matching page and find a good monthly or upfront deal to start. Again, excellent specs make this a good choice for beginners to explore Usenet, but the lack of a built-in newsreader makes it slightly trickier for beginners.

Usenet users like to quote Fight Club and say the first (and second) rule of Usenet is not to talk about it to outsiders. We’ve broken that rule so that you’ll have the tools in hand to choose the best Usenet provider for you. Are you ready to join this niche group or Usenet experts?

Credits — The team that worked on this guide

Michael Hicks got his tech start in 2016, covering emerging tech like VR and self-driving cars before expanding to all things tech. When he’s not gaming or reading SFF novels, he writes freelance for Android Central and Windows Central.

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Company:

Using Usenet in 2020? Here are our favorite providers

The best Usenet providers, at a glance

What are the best Usenet providers?

The best Usenet providers

1. Newshosting: Best Overall Usenet Provider

Pros:

Cons:

Best Overall

Newshosting

2. Giganews: Best Premium Usenet Provider

Pros:

Cons:

Best Premium Usenet Provider

Giganews

3. UsenetExpress: Best Usenet Block Provider

Pros:

Cons:

Best Usenet Block Provider

UsenetExpress

4. Eweka: Best Usenet Provider for Fast Downloads and Retention

Pros:

Cons:

Best Usenet Provider for Fast Downloads and Retention

Eweka

5. TweakNews: Best Usenet Provider for High Completion Rates

Pros:

Cons:

Best Usenet Provider for High Completion Rates

TweakNews

6. NewsDemon: Best Usenet Reseller for Cheap Unlimited Data

Pros:

Cons:

Best Usenet Reseller for Cheap Unlimited Data

NewsDemon

7. Usenet.Farm: Best Usenet Provider for Privacy

Pros:

Cons:

Best Usenet Provider for Privacy

Usenet.Farm

What is Usenet and why do I need it?

Is Usenet legal?

What’s the difference between Usenet and torrent websites?

How is one Usenet provider different from another?

How to pick the best Usenet provider

1. Consider Block pricing (at first)

2. Make sure you have servers nearby

3. Subscribe to two providers, or one subscription and one block

What are the best Usenet providers for beginners?

Credits — The team that worked on this guide

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