Usenet is one of the older, and in my opinion, still one of the most useful information sources on the Internet.

I find that the newsgroups often contain more relevant and more technical information that I can find in web forums and find myself using Google Groups at work to search for obscure technical errors and their fixes.

That being said, I have been a subscriber to NewsHosting for quite a while.   I don’t really have anything bad to say about NewsHosting.  They have been super reliable, and I have no problem using 100% of my 8mb bandwidth while only using 4 connections to the server.  They are certainly among the least expensive of the servers out there, and I haven’t had any issues with articles not being found, even those slightly older than their advertised retention rate.  The only reason I am looking to switch is because they don’t offer SSL encrypted connections, and other providers now do.

I tried looking at UsenetServer but am pretty disappointed in the experience I have had so far.  They have a few neat gimmicks but their core service has been unreliable for me.  They offer up to 20 connections, but I don’t really care about the number of connections .. If I can max out my bandwidth with 4 connections, why should I care that I can use 20?  The biggest issue I ran across is their server load.  For two days in a row now, I haven’t been able to connect when I wanted to, and had to wait for their load-balancing to kick in properly.  This morning, that took over 30 minutes.  I say bummer for them, because I am going to look elsewhere.  I think it’s unacceptable!  UsenetServer’s web page is also really unprofessional.  I’ve seen better navigation from pages designed by 5th graders, serisouly.  They have A LOT of links that don’t allow you to get back to the home page.  Information is hard to find, and it looks like someone spent about 10 minutes in a free WYSIWYG web designer.  Their reliability seems to pretty much reflect the amount of effort they have put into their web page….

So next on the list is NewsDemon [http://www.NewsDemon.com].  They offer SSL, which I think is great, and are giving bloggers a 1 month free trial.  I hope to take advantage of this to test out their services, and SSL is key.  SSL is currently the ONLY reason I’m looking to switch away from NewsHosting.   The NewsDemon web page looks very professional and is easy to navigate.  Hopefully, like UsenetServer, this is an indication of the quality of their service.  I will be able to post a follow up if and/or when I get my free month trial account.