What are newsgroups and Usenet?
Newsreaders are programs that let you read newsgroups, thus I will start by defining them. Newsgroups are forums for discussion that are most comparable to e-mail lists, except that the messages go to the public (unless the group is a local group) and one does not need to be subscribed, in the mailing list sense, to participate. For example, if there is a group called “rec.widgetmaking” (a group for widget making enthusiasts) that you are interested in, you would tell your newsreader to subscribe you to that group. (You would find the group by looking or searching through the full list of newsgroups on your server, or perhaps a friend also interested in widget making told you about the group.) This has no impact on the group itself, it just tells your newsreader to put that group on your subscribed list. Your newsreader program then makes this group more accessible and stores information about which messages you have already read, etc. When you open this newsgroup to read, there should
