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UsenetServer Review 2024
With industry leading retention (15 years for both text and binaries), UsenetServer is one of the best available US providers. Perfect for power users and newbies alike.
UsenetServer has, for several years, been popular primarily among regular Usenet users. It’s a simple, no-frills provider that gets you on the network and lets you go from there. Their pricing plans are direct and not overloaded with features that you won’t use. They have a decent number of connections, and their retention is top notch. If you’ve been on Usenet for a while, this could significantly increase your search success percentage.
- Unlimited downloads for a simple, direct, and inexpensive price.
- Up to 50 SSL connections for super fast speeds.
- Stress tested network that performs incredibly well under high transfer loads.
Retention
Retention is the key to successful searches. Just because the majority of people will only access the most recent Usenet articles, that doesn’t mean that you won’t sometimes want one from 11 years ago. On UsenetServer, you’ll be able to access it.
They provide an enormous 15 years of binary retention. This results in a 99.99% download completion rate for most users. The people running UsenetServer also are adding more retention at a day-to-day rate, so they’re among the only companies actually keeping a complete record of Usenet.
Speed and Connections
Because the UsenetServer network is so stable, download speeds were easily topping 100MB a second during our tests. Unlimited speed is a key feature of the network, especially when similar providers will throttle connections based on subscription tier. No matter which UsenetServer plan you use, you will have the maximum speeds available to your local ISP.
All connections are protected by SSL, so you don’t have to worry about your Usenet activity being watched.
Pricing
As far as price goes, UsenetServer is significantly lower than most of the competition. All plans come with full retention, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited speed, Usenet search, and SSL connections.
The 1 Month and 3 Months plans allow you to add a zero-log VPN for an additional $4.99 or $4.00 per month, respectively, but the 12 Months plan includes it for free with the subscription.
Broken down per month, you can get a UsenetServer subscription for $14.95 month-to-month, $8.95 for a 3 month term, and $7.95 if you pay annually.
Honestly, we feel these are fantastic prices for what you’re getting. If you take the price of the included VPN out of the 12 Months plan, you’re effectively paying $2.95 per month for Usenet.
Bonuses
Again, UsenetServer is not really the provider aimed at newbies looking for perks to make things easier. It’s for experienced users who want inexpensive access to the 110,000+ available newsgroups.
That being said, we’re really impressed with the VPN offering. Their partner, PrivadoVPN, is fairly new, but we see a lot of great reviews of them online and the price just can’t be beat. That alone makes committing to a year worth the investment.
Otherwise, UsenetServer makes the most of being relatively stripped down, turning it into an asset. If you want to access the Omicron backbone without paying through the nose, UsenetServer is the way to go.
Our Methodology
At BestUsenetReviews, we carefully test every Usenet provider we look at. Among the criteria that we examine to provide the most detailed reviews are retention, download completion, speeds, connections, price, and additional features. We assign scores to each and average those for an overall result.
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How We Rate Usenet Providers
At BestUsenetReviews, we take the time to carefully examine all of our subjects to find the most up to date information on how various providers stack up against each other so that we can give you an accurate account of not just our experiences, but also what we believe an average experience to be. We look at the following criteria to make our list:
Download Completion – The primary concern for Usenet should be whether text and binary articles can be successfully completed. Every option archives all 110,000+ Usenet newsgroups for their full retention period.
Retention – We feel that retention is crucial for most Usenet users, particularly those who are searching for older articles.
Download and Speed Limits – There are too many Usenet options to deal with a provider that doesn’t give you high or unlimited downloads and speeds.
Customer Support – Sometimes things go wrong, and we want to know that the providers we recommend will take care of their users in an efficient, timely, and courteous manner.
Network Performance – We have a variety of testers around the world who put Usenet providers under stress to see which ones have the highest performance, even with extreme use.