General

1. What is UsenetBinaries.com?
2. What is the Usenet?
3. How do I get started on the web site?

Pricing and Billing

1. Usenet content is free; why should I pay for a full account at UsenetBinaries.com?
2. How much does an unlimited membership cost?
3. What forms of payment does UsenetBinaries.com accept?
4. How is the service billed on my credit card?
5. Why isn't my credit card working?
6. How do I change my credit card information?
7. How do I reactivate a closed or locked account?
8. What happens if the site is down?
9. How do I contact UsenetBinaries.com?

Login and Accounts

1. I've forgotten my password or username, what do I do?
2. Why do I just get another login screen when I try to log in?
3. Why isn't my email validation link working?
4. Why didn't I receive my validation email?
5. Have I been suspended/slowed down for some reason?
6. Is my personal information/activity on the site kept private?
7. How do I cancel my subscription?

Content

1. When is the web site updated with new content?
2. Why can't I view certain videos?
3. Why do I get sound only, no video when playing some files?
4. Why don't you have group 'x'?
5. Is UsenetBinaries.com a porn site?
6. How do I prevent my children from using UsenetBinaries.com?
7. What do I do if I see illegal or inappropriate content on your site?
8. What do I do if I see my own copyrighted content on your site?

Site Features

1. Can I post files to Usenet?
2. How do I save my favorite groups?
3. How do I send a file from the web service to a friend?
4. How do I save a file to my hard drive?

NNTP

1. What news reader should I use?
2. What is your news server NNTP address/port for using UsenetBinaries.com with my newsreader?
3. Why do I get a bad login info error from Outlook Express when trying to view newsgroups?
4. Why do I get an Insufficient Quota error from my news reader when trying to connect?
5. How do I upgrade my account to add NNTP access or more NNTP quota?

Technical Details

1. Does UsenetBinaries.com support yEnc encoding?
2. Do you observe 'X-No-Archive' headers?

General

1. What is UsenetBinaries.com?

UsenetBinaries.com is an Internet Service Provider (ISP) which provides NNTP access to the Usenet, as well as an online binary gateway to Usenet content that you can use with any modern web browser.

2. What is the Usenet?

The Usenet is a large network of computers, spread around the world, which maintains topical threaded email discussions. Within these discussion groups, users have also encoded many types of binary files. UsenetBinaries.com provides access to a subset of these binary messages through its easy to use web gateway, or full access to all Usenet content via its NNTP service. UsenetBinaries.com maintains a page of historical information about the Usenet.

3. How do I get started on the web site?

Can't decide what to look at first? Here's a way to get started:

1. If you haven't already done so, create a UsenetBinaries.com account.
2. Log in and go to our home page.
3. Select one of the "See All Groups" links to get a list of active groups in each category.
4. Sort by either most content (the default) or alphabetically using the links in the upper right.
5. When you see a group name that interests you, click on it.
6. Browse around the most recent date, or click on active calendar days to see what the group carries over time.
7. If you like the group, you can make it one of your favorites with the "Add Group to Favorites" button in the upper right (note that only paid users can see their favorites on the home page).

Good luck, and enjoy!

Pricing and Billing

1. Usenet content is free; why should I pay for a full account at UsenetBinaries.com?

We do not charge for the Usenet content itself; we charge for our newsreader services - NNTP access, decoding, thumbnailing, indexing, and bandwidth.

2. How much does an unlimited membership cost?

The monthly fee starts at $14.95. The most current price list is always available on our Upgrade form.

3. What forms of payment does UsenetBinaries.com accept?

We accept only Mastercard and Visa at this time.

4. How is the service billed on my credit card?

Charges to your credit card will appear as 'UsenetISP, LLC'.

5. Why isn't my credit card working?

We validate your credit card using Verisign payment processing, which validates your credit card with the issuing bank. To protect your privacy, we are not given information regarding why a credit card has failed. If your credit card is failing, you must contact your issuing bank with the date and time of the transaction, and they will be able to tell you why it failed.

If your credit card is not being validated by our system please contact your bank before contacting us! Otherwise, we will simply reply asking you to call your bank, which will simply be annoying for you.

6. How do I change my credit card information?

Edit and submit your credit card information on our Billing Info form.

7. How do I reactivate a closed or locked account?

Edit and submit your credit card information on our Billing Info form. (Even if the data has not changed, resubmitting your card info will trigger our billing system to charge your card and reactivate your account.)

8. What happens if the site is down?

We strive to keep our site up 24/7/365. Like any Internet service, we are bound to encounter unexpected downtime. We include extra bandwidth on your account exclusively for the purpose of buffering for this, to avoid the difficulty of crediting your account. As a result, we do not credit accounts for transient outages.

9. How do I contact UsenetBinaries.com?

Use our Contact Us page.

Login and Accounts

1. I've forgotten my password or username, what do I do?

Please use our Lost Password and Lost Username tools.

2. Why do I just get another login screen I try to log in?

If there is any problem with your account at UsenetBinaries.com, you will get some sort of error message on login - always.

If you try to login and simply get another login screen with your information missing, this is a very specific problem - your browser is not sending us your login cookie. This can because of your browser's cookie, privacy, or proxy settings. Internet Explorer's and Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox's default settings are tested to work correctly with the UsenetBinaries.com login process.

Check that your browser is set to accept cookies. If the browser asks if you want to accept a cookie upon login, accept it. You cannot login without a cookie. If you are using the AOL browser, try using Firefox, Opera, or Internet Explorer instead.

If you are using Internet Explorer, follow the menu path 'Tools... Internet Options... Privacy...' and make sure the slider is set to 'Medium'.

Another problem with cookies is specific to Internet Explorer. Make sure that your system clock is set to the current date and time. If it is set in the future, IE may not send cookies properly. You can adjust your date and time by double-clicking on the clock in the system tray.

Finally, some anti-spyware program options may be so limiting as to prevent legitimate cookie usage as well as improper usage. The only solution is to turn off the anti-spyware options that are causing problems, or switch to an anti-spyware program that does not break cookies.

UsenetBinaries.com cannot provide support for login problems which may be caused by third-party software.

3. Why isn't my email validation link working?

This is because your email client has wrapped the validation URL off the end of the line and onto the next line. Or worse - some email programs are especially bad and mangle the actual contents of the URL.

If it doesn't work, just visit this link and follow the instructions.

4. Why didn't I receive my validation email?

We have never had an email outage to date with our system. We receive many emails daily from folks that do not receive our confirmation emails, and all are found to be one of three reasons:

1. You cannot receive email at all because your email mailbox is full.
2. You cannot receive email at all because your ISP's email service is down.
3. You did not receive the confirmation email because either your email client or ISP has mistakenly flagged the email as spam.

If you did not receive the email, we cannot help you. You need to be able to interact with the automated email systems to validate your account; we cannot do it manually. But here's what you can do:

1. Send yourself an email, or have someone send one to you, and see if you can receive it to make sure your email is working. If you can't receive email, make sure you mailbox isn't full. Lastly, contact your email administrator at your ISP to ask what's up.
2. Check your spam email folder in Outlook to see if Outlook moved it there.
3. Ask the email administrator at your ISP if there is any spam filtering software at the ISP which is blocking email to your account. Have the date and time you expected the email to arrive handy if he asks. He can probably fix this for you.

5. Have I been suspended/slowed down for some reason?

Maybe. We reserve the right to do this at any time for a violation of our Terms of Service or for any reason we deem necessary to protect our service or network. In general, you'd have to be doing something pretty bad. If you just surf our site according to the terms of service, you generally don't have to ever worry about this.

6. Is my personal information/activity on the site kept private?

Yes. We do not share our user's information with anyone, and we do not attach your personal information to any of our web logs.

7. How do I cancel my subscription?

Visit the Cancel page. Please note that cancellation takes effect immediately upon completion of the cancellation process. You should cancel only when you are ready to end your service, and at least three business days before your next billing cycle to avoid being charged again.

Content

1. When is the web site updated with new content?

New content is updated on the web site daily! NNTP service is updated continuously, as fast as content arrives.

2. Why can't I view certain videos?

Either your media player cannot play the type of video you wish to view, or your codecs (video decoding libraries) are missing or out of date. In the table below are our recommendations for media player and codec pack. Install the latest version of each, starting with the media player:

If you are still having problems, make sure you have the latest versions of DivX, 3ivx, QuickTime, and Flash installed, as these may include very recent fixes not yet included in the codec packs above.

UsenetBinaries.com is not responsible for the legality, safety, or integrity of third-party software.

3. Why do I get sound only, no video when playing some files?

Your codecs are out of date; see the previous question. We have had particular complaints about this behavior with out of date DivX and Flash codecs.

4. Why don't you have group 'x'?

It could be for a variety of reasons, but usually because of persistent inappropriate content in that group. That said, it's quite possible we don't carry it because no one has asked us for it; if you'd like to ask us to consider adding a group, please use our Contact Us page.

5. Is UsenetBinaries.com a porn site?

No. We do not buy or otherwise obtain adult content for our site. We are strictly an ISP gateway to the Usenet, and whatever is posted there will appear here. That said, a large amount of material posted to the Usenet is of an adult nature. UsenetBinaries.com is for use by adults only, and as with all Internet services, you must abide by local laws.

6. How do I prevent my children from using UsenetBinaries.com?

If you are using Internet Explorer, go into menu options 'Tools... Internet Options... Content...' and enable 'Content Advisor'.

UsenetBinaries.com sends special codes in its web pages so that the Content Advisor can prevent display of the web site.

UsenetBinaries.com will also be blocked correctly with software such as NetNanny and Cybersitter.

7. What do I do if I see illegal or inappropriate content on your site?

See the Contact Us page for instructions.

8. What do I do if I see my own copyrighted content on your site?

Please follow the instructions on our Copyright/DMCA page.

Site Features

1. Can I post files to Usenet?

Sure! Members can go to the Upload form and post images through their web browsers. The web gateway will encode the image for you and post it to the Usenet. You can also use an NNTP client to upload images if you have subscribed for our NNTP service. In either case, it may take a while for the image to propagate to other Usenet servers and back to UsenetBinaries.com, so be patient. We reserve the right to edit content posted by our users. Content will be posted using the user's email address.

2. How do I save my favorite groups?

When browsing a group, click the 'Add Group to Favorites' button near the top of the screen. You can then view your favorites on the front page when you are logged in. (Note: Only paid users can view their favorites. For free users, the list is saved but not displayed.)

3. How do I send a file from the web service to a friend?

When viewing an file on the web service, click the 'Email to a Friend' button near the top of the screen. You can then enter the address to send to, along with a brief message. The email will also contain the thumbnail montage strip associated with that file, a brief message from UsenetBinaries.com, and links back to the site.

4. How do I save a file to my hard drive?

NNTP

1. What news reader should I use?

Each of the following has gotten good reviews:

• Mozilla Thunderbird (cross-platform text reader)
• Shemes.com Grabit (Windows binary reader)
• S&H News Rover (Windows combined reader)
• Rebel Base Pan (Linux/Unix combined reader)

As noted above, some (such as Grabit) are better at handling binaries, while others (such as Thunderbird) are better at handling text discussions.

Some releases of Pan are known to have memory problems dealing with the largest binary groups, but those are probably best accessed using our web interface anyway. On the flip side, we have heard good things about the stability of Grabit in the same situation.

For this reason, UsenetBinaries.com is now pleased to offer a customized version of Grabit for our Windows users on our Downloads page. Please give it a try, and let us know how it works for you!

2. What is your news server NNTP address/port for using UsenetBinaries.com with my newsreader software?

3. Why do I get a bad login info error from Outlook Express when trying to view newsgroups?

This usually means that your account is currently Web Only, and does not include NNTP access. You can upgrade your account to include NNTP access by selecting a new package on our Upgrade form and resubmitting your information.

4. Why do I get an Insufficient Quota error from my news reader when trying to connect?

This could have one of two possible causes:

1. Your account is a Web Only account, which does not include NNTP access.
2. You have an account that includes NNTP access, but you have run out of data quota for the month.

In either case, to get NNTP access for your news reader (or more of it), you will need to upgrade your account using our Upgrade form.

5. How do I upgrade my account to add NNTP access or more NNTP quota?

Simply select an upgraded package on our Upgrade form and resubmit your information.

Technical Details

1. Does UsenetBinaries.com support yEnc encoding?

Yes, we always have, and we also encode binaries posted by our members with yEnc. yEnc encoding is a method of converting binary information into text which is required to post Usenet content. It is more efficient than other methods.

2. Do you observe 'X-No-Archive' headers?

No. UsenetBinaries.com is simply an online news reader, and has no more retention (archive history) than any good news server. 'X-No-Archive' is for services which archive Usenet content long term, like Google Groups.