Tera News provides free uncensored, unlogged, NNTP news server access to all newsgroups, including all of the binary newsgroups.

Want to try our servers without opening an account? Configure your news client to use public.teranews.com with no user name or password. You get full read access (no posting) to the same server, but your download speeds will be capped at 128kbit.

And best of all, it's FREE*!!!

Yes, we are offering commercial quality Usenet news access absolutely FREE*. If you like the server and want full speed and the ability to post you can click on the 'Create Account' button to create your own account. We offer everything from lifetime free accounts (one time 3.95 setup fee) to unlimited usenet accounts for as little as $12/month (when bought in 6 month blocks).

What is Usenet?

Usenet is a world-wide distributed discussion system. It consists of a set of "newsgroups" with names that are classified hierarchically by subject. "Articles" or "messages" are "posted" to these newsgroups by people on computers with the appropriate software -- these articles are then broadcast to other interconnected computer systems via a wide variety of networks.

Taken from: What is Usenet FAQ.

How to get started?

To start enjoying this wonderful tool we call the Usenet you need a two things: a news client and a news server. Configure you news client to connect to public.teranews.com, port 119 or 443. If you have a SSL enabled news client (best option) you can use ports 563 or 80. By using SSL not only will you data be encrypted, but your download speeds will be faster due to data compression of the SSL tunnel.

There are many clients to choose from. There are two main types of clients: news readers and binary downloaders. Windows Live Mail is an example of a free news reader. XNews is another good free news reader that will also decode binaries.

NewsBin Pro is an example of a binary downloader that supports SSL.

Please note that Usenet newsgroups are uncensored public forums. We have no control over what users of other servers posts. We expect our users to behave in a mature and polite manner.