Internet : USENET Newsgroups

The System

USENET newsgroups are used by Internet users to discuss topics of interest. There are newsgroups for many different topics. Any user can read the articles that are in a newsgroup or add extra articles themselves. Newsgroups are a good place to ask questions of other Internet users.

For example if you wanted to find out something about the Java programming language you could ask a question in the comp.lang.java newsgroup. Your question would be seen by everyone else who reads this newsgroup. Anyone who knew the answer could send you a reply.

Any message you send to a newsgroup will not be seen immediately by the other newsgroup users. It will only be seen by a user the next time he reads the newsgroup. It may therefore be a number of days before you receive a reply.

Because USENET newsgroups are read by millions of people across the world you can be fairly certain that someone will be able to help you if they choose to.

The Software

To be able to read and create news messages you need a piece of software called a news reader. Sometimes the facilities of both a news reader and an email program are integrated into one package.

Advantages and Problems

The main advantage of USENET over other messaging systems such as email and chat rooms is that you can post just one messsage that will be read by many users. These users will probably be interested in or know about the topic the message relates to as they have chose to look at the newsgroup the message was posted to. USENET therefore provides an excellent way to find out about particular topics and to communicate with people you don't know who are interested in a topic.

There are two problems with the USENET system. The first is spamming. Many companies send advertisement messages to USENET newsgroups. These do not necessarily relate to the group topic and are often sent in large numbers. These messages are referred to as SPAM. Some newsgroups become unusable because they are overrun by SPAM. The second problem is that it can be difficult to determine the source and accuracy of a message posted to a newsgroup, so care needs to be taken when reading messages.

GCSE ICT Companion 04 - (C) P Meakin 2004