Easynews has been providing Usenet news since 1997. They provide a simple, web-based newsreader which allows users to easily preview and download Usenet binary files.  Also available is NNTP Access (included free with their “Big Gig” package), which has unlimited speed and downloads for only $9.95/month. For new users, they provide a 14 day free usenet trial with 10GB downloads included.

Account Features

Free Trial – Easynews provides a 14-day free trial that allows up to 10GB of usenet binary downloads from their Newsgroup servers.  If you do not cancel within 14 days or 10GB of downloads your credit card will automatically be billed for the subscription amount.

Web-based Newsgroup Reader – Easynews allows users to use their normal Web Browser to read Usenet articles posted int the last 200 days.  Users can preview and then download copies of full articles and Usenet binaries they want to their local machine.

NNTP/Newsreader Access – Easynews also provides access to the last ~1330 days of Usenet binaries from a Newsgroup client.  NNTP Access is included for free in their “Big Gig” account and can be added to any of the other accounts for only $9.95/month.
*NOTE* you will have to either buy or download a free Newsbrowser to use this feature, and you may need to configure additional applications to work with the articles depending on the Usenet client you use.

Unlimited – Easynews NNTP access allows unlimited speed and unlimited downloads from their newsgroup servers.  During my testing I can consistently download articles fast enough to use all my Internet bandwidth.

Redundancy – Easynews has fully redundant server farms in the USA and Europe.  They keep multiple copies of every Usenet article at each server farm which helps guarantee that even in the event of a server failure, or even loss of a server farm, you will still be able to get access to the articles you want to download.

Encryption – All Easynews accounts include 256-bit Encrypted SSL connections.  This helps to protect your privacy because all data between your Newsgroup client and the Usenet servers are unreadable by anyone that could intercept them.

Alternate Ports – Easynews allows alternate ports for connecting to both the Web-Based reader and their Newsgroup servers using your Usenet newsreader.  This helps to reduce the chances that your ISP will throttle your connection for newsgroups.  For more information about this read my post: Alternate Ports

Support – 24×7 support is available for Easynews customers.  Support can be in the form of email, a phone call or live chat on their website.  They also have extensive support forums which can probably answer most of your questions.

Web-Based Newsreader

The ease of using the web-based newsreader is a very strong selling point for this provider, especially since it is platform independent and can work with any device with a web browser.  I am only aware of a couple of web-based newsreaders, and the Easynews client is very pleasant to use, unlike many of the others.  Reading, viewing and listening to content from Usenet servers is as simple as pointing your web browser at easynews.com, logging in and searching for newsgroup articles posted  in the last ~200 days with key words and phrases in their subject  lines across multiple newsgroups.  Some filtering is provided allowing you to only view certain kinds of media, limit newsgroups, posting date ranges, etc.  Your results are displayed as thumbnails, when you click on the thumbnails you will hear or see samples for audio and video files or download images to your computer.  You can also have multiple tabs or windows open in your browser all displaying search results or Usenet content, the number of allowed connections is unlimited.

Zip Manager

Easynews also provides the Zip Manager, which can be used to tag all of your Usenet binaries or articles, similar to a shopping cart.  After you have marked all the conent you want it can be put in one, or several, large files, called ZIP files, which you can then download to your PC or even share with friends that also use Easynews.  Each  ZIP file can hold up to 5000 files or 2GB of data, and each user can have up to 10 zip files queued for download at a time.  The ZIP manager can also create playlists (M3U), readme files, CSV and SVF files and can also generate an NZB file which can be used with a NNTP newsreader.

NNTP Access

Most Usenet purists don’t use things like web-based readers, and even people that do, sometimes need access to articles that are more than 200 days old.  Easynews provides direct NNTP access to 1330 days of usenet binaries using your Newsgroup reader free with their “Big Gig” account, or for only $9.95 with any other account or even stand-alone.  NNTP access includes 256-bit SSL and header compression if your newsreader supports them. You can use whatever newsgroup browser application you like with this account.  If you don’t have a favorite I would suggest going to my Newsgroup Reader List and see if you can find one that you like there.  You can expect to pay around $20 for a good newsreader.

Summary

Easynews provides excellent service and an impressive number of options to choose from.  During my testing I found the web-based reader and zip manager to both be easy work with.  When stress testing NNTP access from my newsgroup client I was able to download a 4GB ISO, using an NZB file created by the ZIP manager, in about 8 minutes which is close to the theoretical limit for my internet connection.