Continuing the WWW vs the Usenet thing.

Hounddog · Post by **Hounddog** » 13 December 04 1:59 pm

But the WWW *IS* the internet to most people these days, and has most of the things they use on a daily basis. You use it for your banking, shopping, white/yellow pages, booking your movie and concert tickets, finding an endless amount of information, the list is endless.
Can't do any of that on Usenet, which is only a chat/forum service.
I use Usenet extensively, but it's just for chatting with others.
This is why the "Internet" only took off when the WWW came along, before that is was only for geeks and uni students.

Gee Dave,

You obviously haven't explored the usenet of late.

To state the Usenet is just a Forum /Chat medium is to do it, and the millions of people contributing to it, a great injustice

I never said the Usenet was the be all and end all , I simply said people should open their horizons and at least learn of it's existence.

On the Usenet, just in the last few weeks I have.....

Gathered an enormous amount of information on subjects that the WWW had absolutetly nothing on.
Extended research on my Family Tree by accessing a Genealogy discussion group, that actually wanted to help and not make money out of me.
I Downloaded over 5000 songs for my ipod, all without any cost, and at speeds far in excees of any website downloading. (BTW this practice has been tested in American courts and found, for the time being at least, to be legal compared to naps type protocols)
Also I downloaded some old movies, most of which are not obtainable on the web, and some very interesting privately written Games posted by the authors..
Then there's the photography, again not obtainable on the web (At least not without high cost)
I just Downloaded a manual for my hopelessly out of date air conditioner, the manufactures website had nothing.

You may not be able to buy your opera tickets or do your banking on it , but there is just as much info available on the usenet. There are still some very important differences however. I ALWAYS get my information without cost, without censorship, and without being assaulted with advertising. I also get info without my privacy being stolen by web sites wanting to sell it to spammers.

Not bad from a boring old chat/forum medium for geeks.

Lt. Sniper · Post by **Lt. Sniper** » 13 December 04 2:12 pm

I found the topic sway interesting,

IsnÃ‚â€™t this just a new name for Newsgroups?

netscape.mozilla.user.win32
aus.bushwalking (love your work Andrew!!

)
etc..

Or am I talking about something completely different here?

Aushiker · Post by **Aushiker** » 13 December 04 2:18 pm

Lt. Sniper wrote:I found the topic sway interesting,

Isn’t this just a new name for Newsgroups?

netscape.mozilla.user.win32
aus.bushwalking (love your work Andrew!! )
etc..

Or am I talking about something completely different here?

Hi

Same thing and thanks. I also get some great binaries from my ISP's binary group.

BTW interested to know the music group.

Andrew

Mind Socket · Post by **Mind Socket** » 13 December 04 2:24 pm

Interesting reading Hounddog, I must admit I haven't touched newsgroups in a long while.

Could you provide some pointers to the groups that you recommend, especially for the sorts of activities you described (hard to find manuals, old movies, photography etc)?

Also, do you use your ISP's news server only?

Cheers,
- R

Gunn Parker · Post by **Gunn Parker** » 13 December 04 2:47 pm

Yes please, where could I find out more?

EcoTeam · Post by **EcoTeam** » 13 December 04 4:38 pm

Usenet newsgroups have always had binary content as well as messages, I forgot to mention that. I did not say that Usenet was not useful, it is.
When searching for stuff on the net it's common (for the more technical minded anyway) to search newsgroups archives as well. You can do this via Google, just click on the "Groups" button.
Integration of the Usenet archives in Google was the best thing to happen in ages.

But the fact is though that 99.9% of Internet users use the WWW as their primary means of doing stuff and finding stuff on the Internet. Usenet and other services rank down in the noise compared to the WWW.

EcoDave

EcoTeam · Post by **EcoTeam** » 13 December 04 4:45 pm

Actually, come to think of it, with the advent of Peer-Peer services like eDonkey, NapSter et.al the grounds have become blurred. Are these WWW services, or are they "alternative" tools like UseNet?
Actually, you'll almost certainly find that these file sharing services are a lot more popular than UseNet binaries as they are easy to use by your average joe, easy to search etc.

Usenet is primarily a chat/forum service, always has been, it's not setup that well for binary file sharing which is why these peer-peer programs are such a hit. Peer-peer is the way to go for music/file/program sharing.

With the integration into Google, many people probably aren't even aware they are using UseNet...

EcoDave

EcoTeam · Post by **EcoTeam** » 13 December 04 4:53 pm

Mind Socket wrote:Also, do you use your ISP's news server only?
Cheers,
- R

I switched to Google Groups about a year ago. It's better for me as I use multiple machines, so I don't have a problem with syncing new messages etc.
The new Google Groups 2 Beta service isn't too bad, although I've had the occasional problem with it.
Not as flexible as a good newsreader like FreeAgent though.

Just like I'm also 100% web based on my email now. I can access my email (and archived messages) from any machine anywhere. Once again, not as flexible as good email program, but the advantages of using it on any machine are more important for me.

EcoDave

Mind Socket · Post by **Mind Socket** » 13 December 04 5:27 pm

I think that's where our views on the workings of the internet probably differ, Dave. (and that's ok)

The last I heard P2P and email traffic each far outweighed web traffic. It is somewhat misguided to consider www as primary traffic and everything else as alternative. They are all just protocols with front ends and in the grand scheme of things, WWW services are just a small part. A lot of the things that have been "web-enabled" aren't as effective as the dedicated protocols/clients that they emulate. I find email better for communication (web forums are largely tedious but have their place), webmail has it's place but is not as useful/secure/reliable as regular email clients. P2P has all but replaced the web for the distribution of media (not just for traditional file sharing either). FTP is useful for serving files in a no fuss manner. Instant messaging is extremely popular.

As for Google Groups, it is all well and good for finding information, but nothing beats a dedicated nntp client for binaries and regular active participation.

P2P applications are nothing like WWW services, they involve many connections to many peers.

There are 1024 reserved port numbers out of a possible 65536, http is assigned just one of them (2 if you count https). In a given day, I probably use over a dozen diffferent protocols without even thinking about it (let's see, www, IM * 2, ssh, rsync, telnet, rpc, ftp, irc + a handful of specialised ones). Even Joe Schmoe probably uses 3 or 4 (IM, email, web).

The ability to centralise things is one advantage of www for most end users (such as your webmail example). I get around that by logging into the machine to do what I need, but that's a techy thing to do. I access 25+ servers in 11 countries for work, desktop and laptop, home PC and web/email host, and none of that involves a web browser.

Ok, I've finished waffling, I realise I've missed your point slightly, but today's discussions has inspired me to return to IRC and usenet resources and make better use of IM, P2P and email.

Here's to the information revolution!
- Rog

EcoTeam · Post by **EcoTeam** » 13 December 04 6:00 pm

Mind Socket wrote:I think that's where our views on the workings of the internet probably differ, Dave. (and that's ok)

The last I heard P2P and email traffic each far outweighed web traffic. It is somewhat misguided to consider www as primary traffic and everything else as alternative. They are all just protocols with front ends and in the grand scheme of things, WWW services are just a small part. A lot of the things that have been "web-enabled" aren't as effective as the dedicated protocols/clients that they emulate. I find email better for communication (web forums are largely tedious but have their place), webmail has it's place but is not as useful/secure/reliable as regular email clients. P2P has all but replaced the web for the distribution of media (not just for traditional file sharing either). FTP is useful for serving files in a no fuss manner. Instant messaging is extremely popular.

As for Google Groups, it is all well and good for finding information, but nothing beats a dedicated nntp client for binaries and regular active participation.

P2P applications are nothing like WWW services, they involve many connections to many peers.

There are 1024 reserved port numbers out of a possible 65536, http is assigned just one of them (2 if you count https). In a given day, I probably use over a dozen diffferent protocols without even thinking about it (let's see, www, IM * 2, ssh, rsync, telnet, rpc, ftp, irc + a handful of specialised ones). Even Joe Schmoe probably uses 3 or 4 (IM, email, web).

The ability to centralise things is one advantage of www for most end users (such as your webmail example). I get around that by logging into the machine to do what I need, but that's a techy thing to do. I access 25+ servers in 11 countries for work, desktop and laptop, home PC and web/email host, and none of that involves a web browser.

Ok, I've finished waffling, I realise I've missed your point slightly, but today's discussions has inspired me to return to IRC and usenet resources and make better use of IM, P2P and email.

Here's to the information revolution!
- Rog

Actually my view is almost exactly the same as yours Roger.
I have also heard that email and P2P traffic outweighs WWW traffic (actually, I think email traffic outwieghed WWW traffic before P2P came along), but that's not the point I was making, traffic volume does not tell you how meany people are using what. To most people (i.e, the average Internet user who doesn't know what HTTP or FTP means) the "Internet" IS the WWW (and EMAIL) and that is where they spend most, if not all of their Internet related time. It does everything they want.
This is why the Internet had practically no acceptance or use outside of geeks and uni students before the WWW came along.

Usenet has always been there of course, as a forum/file sharing medium, but that's all it is, it hasn't really changed. It doesn't offer the enourmous benefits of P2P.

The P2P and IM programs have really changed the landscape of the Internet, making old features available via the likes Usenet, FTP and IRC available to the average joe in a user friendly and accesible manner.
Your average new Internet user will never know what Usenet, FTP or IRC is, nor do they really have to, new technology is available that is making it less valuable as a resource.

I'd like to know what the ratio of binary downloads is for UseNet vs P2P, I bet it's a 1000 to 1 in favour of P2P

Don't get me wrong, I love Usenet and FTP, I use them every day. But ask any non-technical person what the "Internet" is and they'll tell you it's EMAIL and the WWW browser (or possibly P2P/IM). Only a small percentage of users actively use other services like Usenet.

EcoDave

Post by **CraigRat** » 13 December 04 8:22 pm

BAH! Kids today.

Back when I was first on the internet, there was no WWW ,just newsgroups, ftp, fsp

, telnet and we read our email with vi (or emacs if you had some kind of brain injury)..AND had to use 'sz' to get our files of the server.... and we were greatful!!

Search engines??? WTF is a search engine???

I miss those days, back when posting an ad into a newsgroup was considered taboo......

That said, WWW is now pretty much most of the traffic on the 'net along with P2P stuff... FTP is still reasonably strong...

Used to love newsgroups/usenet but theres so much useless stuff there now that it makes it too hard to find what you need.....

Oh for the old amiga/pc flamewars......................

Sorry for the timewarp..... now, back to the discussion :

Geof · Post by **Geof** » 13 December 04 8:59 pm

On the Usenet, just in the last few weeks I have.....

Gathered an enormous amount of information on subjects that the WWW had absolutetly nothing on.
Extended research ...... etc etc

Ok Can you point us in the direction of were to start (for those of use who, like Shultz know nothing). I take it we won't be using Bill$ $oftware to get in there?
This sounds like the place were those text-art / joke files we saw in the late 80s came from (brought home by relies from Uni).

Ever thought of planting a "Cache" in there?

Aushiker · Post by **Aushiker** » 13 December 04 9:17 pm

Geof wrote:Ok Can you point us in the direction of were to start (for those of use who, like Shultz know nothing). I take it we won't be using Bill$ $oftware to get in there?

First up get a good newsreader. I use Agent but FreeAgent is good. You can find it at http://www.forteinc.com/main/homepage.php Then check with your ISP to get their Usenet (newsgroup) settings. I am with iiNet and they list theirs at http://archive.iinet.net.au/support/newsgroups.html You can also get some general information there on newsgroups.

Have fun.

Andrew

EcoTeam · Post by **EcoTeam** » 13 December 04 9:25 pm

CraigRat wrote:BAH! Kids today.

Back when I was first on the internet, there was no WWW ,just newsgroups, ftp, fsp , telnet and we read our email with vi (or emacs if you had some kind of brain injury)..AND had to use 'sz' to get our files of the server.... and we were greatful!!

Search engines??? WTF is a search engine???

I miss those days, back when posting an ad into a newsgroup was considered taboo......

That said, WWW is now pretty much most of the traffic on the 'net along with P2P stuff... FTP is still reasonably strong...

Used to love newsgroups/usenet but theres so much useless stuff there now that it makes it too hard to find what you need.....

Oh for the old amiga/pc flamewars......................

Sorry for the timewarp..... now, back to the discussion :

BAH!
When I was a boy, you BUILT your own computer and you had a 7 segment LED HEX readout.
Then along came monitors in nothing but Green, Amber, or if you were really funky, WHITE!
BBS's ruled the land, 300 baud was FAST!, and Kermit wasn't just a frog...

EcoDave

EcoTeam · Post by **EcoTeam** » 13 December 04 9:39 pm

Geof wrote:
On the Usenet, just in the last few weeks I have.....

Gathered an enormous amount of information on subjects that the WWW had absolutetly nothing on.
Extended research ...... etc etc
Ok Can you point us in the direction of were to start (for those of use who, like Shultz know nothing). I take it we won't be using Bill$ $oftware to get in there?

The easiest way to start with Usenet is with Google Groups here:
http://www.google.com.au/grphp?hl=en&tab=wg
The Australian groups are here:
http://groups.google.com.au/groups?hl=e ... &group=aus

A FAQ is here:
http://www.google.com.au/googlegroups/help.html

Google will let you view and post messages, although it will take a few hours for the message to appear in the group. Google Groups 2 (beta) is better as it allows you to "join" usenet groups, watch topics of interest, and also allow you to view and post via your email (like Yahoo groups)
http://groups-beta.google.com/?sourceid=ghpp

If you use a newsreader program you need either an ISP who supports newsgroups (not all do, and some do it very badly), or use one of the free ones out there. But this is often a hassle to set up. Google will get you started, and if you like it you can upgade to a newsreader program if needed.

The thing to remember with Usenet is there is no one central repository of messages or groups, and no one really controls it. Usenet servers are scattered throughout the world, and when you post a message it has to propagate throughout all the servers. Not all servers support all newsgroups, so if you use your ISP then it may only support say 10,000 newsgroups out of a possible 50,000.

Most news servers will automatically purge messages after a set time, and in this case it's up to Google to archive and index them all for future reference. This used to be done by DejaNews until Google bought them.

EcoDave