I’m curious: How many people that visit this site use newsgroups? How many people even know what newsgroups are?
If you follow any Windows-related newsgroups, leave a comment (anonymous is OK) and tell me which ones you follow.
Also, do you use a newsgroup reader, like Outlook Express, Windows Mail, Agent, or Thunderbird? Or do you use a web-based reader like Google Groups or Microsoft newsgroups? Or do you have a completely different approach?
Ed Bott (@ wordpress.com) 
I use them a lot.
We use the open to public ones, TechNet’s managed ones, and our Microsoft Partner private ones.
Sometimes I am looking for answers, but for the most part, I like to answer some questions if I can and glean some knowledge at the same time.
Readers used are balanced between browser and Outlook OE version.
I enjoy your posts! Keep up the great work!
Philip E.
I typically use Google’s newsreader to monitor a number of Microsoft groups and a couple of computer-related groups in the alt. hierarchy (like alt.comp.hardware).
The signal-to-noise ratio is sometimes awful, but the signal is usually worth the noise.
I have periodically used newsgroups. For years, I used Agent. Since Vista, I have used Windows Mail for newsgroups as well.
I posted on the Microsoft Vista newsgroups for a few weeks. My experience is pretty much identical to Serdar’s, but I bet he has much more patience than I do.
I have always used newsgroups. I was one of the early adopters of Forte Agent, and have been a beta tester of various newsreaders for both Mac OS and Windows. Today I mainly use News Rover on Windows, with its interest groups feature that searches for items from large numbers of groups. I have three newsreaders installed on Linux as well.
I’ve been a newsgroup person since probably 1994 or 1995. I frequent quite a few of the Microsoft public newsgroup. I can be found in the MSN and Windows Live newsgroups, but I also follow the Vista groups, albeit at a distance – mostly scanning headers and reading selectively, with an occasional reply.
-steve
I use newsgroups off and on. A little more on for when I’ve been involved with beta testing and the private news groups associated with them and for those I use Outlook Express. When I’m just looking for answers for any MS software I generally use Microsoft Newsgroups.
does once running a set of NNTP newsgroups count? 🙂 before moving the WinExtra groups to a web forums style due to having to change to remote hosting they ran as NNTP newsgroups for the better part of 6 years.
Lately though I find myself leaving them behind especially since becoming a blogger. Now my main source of info is RSS feeds.
Newsgroups are still the best place to get info on Quicken bugs and some Wordperfect stuff
I use whatever is handy. Lately that’s google, but it’s been everything from thunderbird to tin.
I confess that I once wrote the charter for a newsgroup, back in the day…
I visit microsoft newsgroup daily to see what people are saying about Window Vista. Since I installed Windows Vista on my old computer i had to visit it and this is probably the second choice to ask if tech support can’t answer or solve the problem. I use the browser for the newsgroup since i don’t know how to setup Window Mail for the newsgroup. maybe you can show us how
Very occasionally I ask a question on one, if I get really stumped.
I am subscribed to microsoft.public.windows.msi, the group for Windows Installer package developers. I answer questions if I think I know the answer or can work one out relatively quickly. I’m currently using RSS Bandit’s newsgroups feature, but the reply mechanism is a bit sucky (it has no way to quote).
I mainly use usegroups through google when I have a particular problem. ( eg when IE7 changed the way FTP worked). The usegroups can be helpful to point to web sites with the solutions quicker than looking at the main search results. Very occassionally I will leave a post (again through google) but often hard to find out which group to post on.
I have been involved with nntp groups since the early 90’s. I monitor quite a few public groups. I also participate in several private beta groups.
I have been using Agent almost from day 1 for groups. Microsoft has decided that the web forums are the future but they aren’t for me. I have stopped participating in several of the groups that they have migrated over because of my distaste for the web forum format.
As others have mentione the signal to noise ratio is high in the public, the private ones too I think, comparde to the past but…
I glean what I can and help where possible.
-bill
I really dislike newsgroups. In fact, I seldom read the “Talkback” comments on the ZDNet blogs because the format is so similar. Conversely, I do read comments posted here. Click on comments and they can all be read at a glance, no additional clicking involved.
I’ve used newsgroups as a resource for quite some time (late 90’s?) I generally search newsgroups using Google Groups when I have a problem.
I gave up on client-based newsreaders in the DejaNews days because local app search capabilities didn’t help me find answers. I’d actually like to help folks out by posting, but I just don’t have the time.
I’m a newsgroup junkie. I’ve been using them since probably 1989, and much like a lot of tech it was to hunt for naked ladies in the alt.binaries groups 🙂
I graduated highschool and went from uudecoding boobies and started using newsgroups to get in contact with other software developers. This was before google, before big search engines and newsgroups were the best way to bounce ideas off of other developers and ask questions.
I still use newsgroups because as great as RSS is there is just no good way to have an equal multi-person conversation.
I prefer an offline newsreader to online because:
It’s easier for me to save posts by just dragging them into a new folder. I can still get to that information offline.
I can flag a post for watching and easily see when it’s been updated.
Feels quicker than web-based readers.
I don’t have to go through a forum registration process.
More information is visable at one time.
I’ve tried a lot of newsgroup readers but I keep coming back to Outlook Express. Not because it’s all that great but it does what it’s supposed to, it’s stable, and it comes built in.
All the newsgroups I read are development-related (Borland/CodeGear, RemObjects, Raize, AutomatedQA). I used to read the windows ones but they were making some changes awhile back when they tried to go to a web-based only format and I haven’t checked in awhile to see if they are back as NNTP.
I really don’t like online forums. I hate having so many different forum passwords and the notification options are spotty at best. Plus, on a site like The Green Button if the forums are having a bad day so are you. I never have the performance issues via NNTP that I do so often with web-based readers and forums.
I use NNTP alot. Mostly my own (windowsconnected.com) and the Microsoft public and private beta newsgroups. This is something that polarizes people some people love em and others can’t stand em which is why i offer both.
Google Groups is, in my opinion, absolutely indispensable for software developers.
Type in a weird error message — “0x80005000 unknown error” for Active Directory, for example — and you’ll get an answer. In this case, it’s that you should be using “LDAP://”, not “ldap://”, because the creators of Active Directory and the ADSI tools are complete idiots.
Google Groups is perfect for finding these things quickly.
I have been reading newsgroups for a long time. I still do, though I only read the Microsoft groups (public, beta and the Partner groups). It’s still the best way to get the people’s pulse on a number of technical issues, for example, “Is the latest nForce driver worth installing? If it it blew up on someone, will that necessarily happen to me?” I rely on the Powershell group and sometimes post there.
I use them to download various porn, I admit. Other than that, I check about a dozen application support groups. And I’ve been using NewsLeecher since version 3.0 (former XNews user).
I regularly read newsgroups using the sorry Windows Mail thing in Vista. About every three days I get mad at it and think about going back to the old Forte Agent I used 5 or 6 years ago. Mostly I read the Microsoft newsgroups, like Vista and Vista Security. Online readers and forums frustrate me because of the round trip slowness of clicking.
Reading the newsgroups is sometimes like cleaning the desk. I always start out great and then get into the habit of trailing off and not keeping on top of the threads. I have found that Forte Agent is the best reader after a little tweaking. I tend to gravitate to the hardware and software groups to find out what users are questioning. Some of the Photoshop and Adobe groups also have some useful information.
I’ve used them forever but find that these days my usage has dropped dramatically in favor of blogs and discussion forums. During the Vista and Office 2007 betas, I was in the MS newsgroups daily but now that those projects are over, it’s mostly a way to stay in touch with my Tablet PC MVP group.
I mostly use them for private beta and public MS groups. Still using Outlook Express and used Forte for a long time.
I have been using newsgroups since before 1990 and the explosive growth of the alt. groups. I mainly use it for h/w and s/w now as the alt. groups are too heavily spammed and any political groups full of single issue nutters.
I was one of the first 100 people to use a licensed version of Forte Agent and still do and with some groups I have 800,000+ messages stored which I frquenlty search when obscure problems with hardware and software arise.
I use Xnews on Windows and Pan on Ubuntu to access newsgroups.
I have been a newsgroup user for more than 10 years.
Lets see, just microsoft related I follow:
Microsoft.public.windows.live.mail.desktop
Mianly becasuse I’v been a beta teste for that in quite some time, and that’s an excellent place to go for information.
I rarely post to newsgroups, but I search Google groups several times a week looking for resolutions to specific problems I’m looking into. I don’t have the time nor desire to browse through them.
Yep, use NNTP all the time. At work, Novell has support forums for both NetWare and Linux which are useful as well as the Microsoft ones. At home, I confess to being more interested in the binaries groups. That means I use Xana News, Google groups, and NewsBin. Blogs are coming along as really technical info sources for problems but they’re not there yet.
For years the Corel Newsgroups for the Graphics Suite, but especially for Ventura Publisher, have provide outstanding, professional-level support for novice-to-hyper experts.
The regulars there share their deep knowledge very generously, often to the point of exchanging troublesome files.
In Wxp I used Outlook Express; now in Vista Windows Mail.
I used to follow them a lot (8-10 years ago) using Forte’s Free agent then I had better things to do with my time after it got really bad with spam adverts. Now I mainly search for answers with google groups and occasionally post requests for help in the newsgroups if I’ve not found anything in google myself or fixed the problem. It’s very rare that I would actually help someone else out (due to the time taken to keep up to date) but then again, most of the stuff that would be helpful is likely to be on my blog anyway and therefore discoverable from google.
I hate the fact that Microsoft’s beta software tends to require the use of newsgroups – why can’t they stick with private forums OR public forums (not sure why they need to use 2 or three different reports thus diluting the support experience)
I use newsgroups a lot.
I subscribe through Thunderbird.
news.mozilla.org
msnews.microsoft.com (four different Word newsgroups)
secnews.netscape.com
I have been on the newsgroups for years, also used Forte’s Free agent early on, use OE now, once in awhile Google groups. I follow microsoft.public.cert.exam.mcdst amoung others.
I rarely post to newsgroups, but I search Google groups several times a week looking for resolutions to specific problems I’m looking into. I don’t have the time nor desire to browse through them.
Hi Ed, I use newsgroups a lot. I mostly use Microsoft newsgroups via the web. I am registered for newsgroups via Outlook Express, but found I much prefer the web based forum. I use the group, “Windows XP Secuity and Administrative”, but also pop into “Media Center 2005”, and “Internet Explorer 7”, “Gerneral”, and the one for newbies. I really appreciate the help from the experts and have learned how to properly post questions AND to be very carefull how i respond to the questions of others. Some of the participant experts are a bit touchy and grotchity when it comes to how you post, cross posting, posting in the wrong group, and not posting a response to a quetion in the proper tree. I also discovered some of the experts will fight over who gets to help those newbies and sometimes an argument over who is correct and who is not will ensue. This last issue has its problems for the original question poster as it becomes murky on whom we should listen to in the event two “experts” disagree! lol Over all I really like and appreciate the newsgroups. It is great to have the ability to first do a search of postings as somebody else may have already had the issue responded to and an answer is just waiting to be read and followed. In fact, the experts try very diligently to encourage such searching prior to posting a new quesiton. Thanks for asking who uses newsgroups. Is there any worry that these groups will stop if enough people are not using them? Gosh, I hope not, as they have been invaluable to me over these many months. I also read your co-authored book: “Windows XP Inside Out”, and use it as reference all the time. I am now reading your security book. Thanks for all your work and effort put into these books, they are great and very appreciated. Serenity
I’ve used them since the late 80’s – but only when necessary because I find their format unrefined, which in today’s day and age, is not refreshing. Although clearly, the majority of those commenting here claim to use them, I truly believe that most of those same people would not qualify as a typical user – but rather at least an advanced user, if not an IT professional.
I use newsgroups and use OE 6 as my news reader.
I subscribe to most Server related groups on Microsoft’s Private and Public news servers. As I use a different MS products I subscribe to that product’s particular group until I no longer need it. I also subscribe to GRC newsgroups and a couple of other private news servers.
At the same time I use Google Groups to subscribe to Usenet groups that interest me.
see my email? search google groups for my name
I expect to use “ox.os.linux” when I enroll at the university. 😉
Well, I use usenet (newsgroups) with 40Tude Dialog, XanaNews and News Grabbit on daily basis. OE and Thunderbird simply lacks advanced features.
microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs
microsoft.public.windows.vista.security
Okay so I’m biased about the first being great.. but that last one .. you can learn a lot in there.
I’ve been a newsgroup person since probably 1994 or 1995. I frequent quite a few of the Microsoft public newsgroup. I can be found in the MSN and Windows Live newsgroups, but I also follow the Vista groups, albeit at a distance – mostly scanning headers and reading selectively, with an occasional reply.
I have periodically used newsgroups. For years, I used Agent. Since Vista, I have used Windows Mail for newsgroups as well.
I posted on the Microsoft Vista newsgroups for a few weeks. My experience is pretty much identical to Serdar’s, but I bet he has much more patience than I do.