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+The technology behind Usenet may be almost thirty years old, but that doesn't mean it's obsolete. In fact Usenet is growing in popularity every day. So what is Usenet?
+
+Simply put, Usenet is a network of newsgroups with a built-in file sharing protocol. Join a newsgroup that caters to your taste and you can begin downloading and sharing files.
+
+Why would you want to use Usenet when fantastic file sharing options like bittorrent exist? The main advantage of Usenet is speed. P2P networks, like bittorrent, depends on peers for download speed and reliability. Usenet on the other hand, depends largely on your own speeds, there is no slow peer connection to choke your downloads.
+
+Combine that with the fact that Usenet files are generally from trusted members, less likely to contain malicious files and less likely to monitored by the RIAA, the MPAA and other watchdogs, and you begin to see why its popularity is growing.
+
+Unfortunately, Usenet has a steeper learning curve than some other file sharing options, but don't worry we'll sort things out for you.
+
+^^^^ How it works
+
+The Usenet network is self propagating, when you upload to a Usenet server, that message is transferred from news server to news server until eventually every Usenet server contains a copy of that message. In practice it may not hit every new server, but it'll hit the big ones.
+
+How long that message -- whether it's just text or binary files -- stays on the server depend on the server in question. The average is around 90 days.
+
+To get started with Usenet you'll need two components: a client on your PC to grab the information, and a server to connect to (where the information is stored).
+
+^^^^ Usenet Clients And Servers
+
+The first step to Usenet is finding a suitable client program. "Grabit"<http://www.shemes.com/> is a popular free client for Windows. Mac users can turn to "OSXnews"<http://osxnews.sourceforge.net/new2/>, which borrows the look and feel of Apple's Mail app. Another more sophisticated option is "Unison"<http://www.panic.com/unison/>, which is a little easier to use, but costs $25.
+
+Once you've got a client you need to find a Usenet server to connect to. The most popular servers (and the ones with the most files available) tend to be private and often charge a subscription fee.
+
+For beginners, a free Usenet server will work just fine, there's list of available servers at "DMoz.org"<http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Usenet/Public_News_Servers/>. But if you find yourself using Usenet frequently you may want to consider upgrading to premium server. Some popular premium servers include "newshosting"<http://newshosting.com/> (plans start at $10/month) or "usenetserver"<http://usenetserver.com/en/index.php> ($15/month).
+
+The advantages of premium servers are more files, longer retention of files and faster download speeds.
+
+^^^^ Setting up your Usenet Client
+
+When you go through the install process your client will ask for a news server address. Either enter on of the more popular free servers, or you premium server and the client will then download all the newsgroups on that server.
+
+Find a group the servers your interest and download the messages. Depending on the newsgroup, this could involve thousands of message header and can take a considerable amount of time.
+
+^^^^ Better Usenet Searching
+
+A partial solution to the overwhelming amount of data available on Usenet comes in the form of NZB or NewzBin files. NZB were developed by "NewzBin.com"<http://www.newzbin.com/>, a commercial newsgroup indexing site, but the format is open source and many other sites now use them.
+
+NZB files are essentially Usenet search engines. Add them to your client and you can search for and only download the headers specific to the file you're after.
+
+"Newzleech"<http://newzleech.com/> and "Yabse"<http://yabse.com/> both offer NZB files which will speed up your Usenet browsing. Just download the files and point your Usenet Client to them (how to do that varies somewhat from client to client, try looking in the client's preferences pane).
+
+^^^^ Putting it all together
+
+Your Usenet client should now be connecting to a server and offering the ability to search before download header. Now, once you see the headers containing the files you want, just click download and the files will start downloading.
+
+Most Usenet files are uploaded as RAR files, which will need to decompressed and reassembled using a RAR extractor. Windows users can grab the free "WinRAR"<http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm> and Mac users can turn to "UnRarX"<http://www.unrarx.com/> which offer similar capabilities.
+
+Just point the RAR extractor to the downloaded files and wait for it to pull out the actual files.
+
+That's it, enjoy your newfound file sharing capabilities.