What Is Usenet?

Date First Published: 26th April 2022

Topic: Computer Networking

Subtopic: Network Services

Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions

Difficulty Level: 6/10

Learn more about what Usenet is in this article.

Short for user’s network, Usenet is an early form of a forum system on the internet that is built on a command-line interface and text-only. It resembles a bulletin-board system and is the predecessor to internet forums. Over 14,000 forums exist on Usenet and it is still used today to communicate and share files.

Usenet allows users to discuss topics, ask questions, and share files through newsgroups that are organised by subject. Users can contribute by creating their own discussion topics and contribute to existing threads within a topic. Cancelbots are used to automatically send messages to bulletin-board Usenet internet newsgroups to delete certain postings, such as spam, duplicate content, undesirable material, and other unwanted content.

Usenet is different from a bulletin board system and a web forum, since it is not hosted on one central server. Usenet newsgroups are hosted on a large number of news servers all around the world, similar to how files are shared through the BitTorrent protocol, since the contents of torrent files are downloaded from computers that already have a complete copy of the file.

How Does Usenet Work?

Usenet works by users posting an article. When that user first posts that article, it is only available on that user’s news server. Then, each news server communicates with other servers, known as its newsfeeds and exchanges articles with them. On the internet, Usenet data is transmitted using the Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) and it uses port 119 for unencrypted communications and port 563 for encrypted communications over SSL/TLS.

When users post articles, they upload binary files to a newsgroup. The binary data then gets converted into multiple text files and a user searches for and downloads articles or files using a newsreader.

Differences Between Usenet and Email Messages

Usenet articles are formatted and exchanged in a similar way to email messages. However, it is possible for Usenet articles to be read by any user whose news server approves the group that the message is posted to and email messages can only be read by one or more recipients.

File Sharing

Over time, Usenet was developed to support file sharing and it is often used to distribute files which contain binary data, such as images, videos, audio files, and computer programs. The .NZB file extension represents a Usenet download, which is an XML file that describes a location where the file can be downloaded and received from a Usenet server. NZB is short for Newzbin Usenet Index.

Usenet Clients

Popular Usenet clients include:

• Sabnzbd - A free binary newsgrabber client that is compatible with Windows, Mac, Unix, and NAS devices.
• Usenet Storm - A free binary newsgrabber client that provides high speed, encrypted communications with 256-bit SSL, simplified user experience, and a web-based NZB service.

History

Usenet was developed in 1979 and was publicly introduced in 1980 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University, over ten years before the introduction of the World Wide Web. It allowed users to read and post messages.