Web-to-news gateways
From Usenet Big-8 Management Board
A web-to-news gateway is a website that allows access to Usenet newsgroups through a web-based user interface. Some allow users to post messages, while others act only as read-only archives.
This page contains a list of currently known websites that act as gateways to Usenet. It should not be taken an endorsement or recommendation of any site listed here.
Please contact us if you have any corrections or you know of any sites not listed here.
Commercial Providers
- Easynews allows its customers to search, read, and download posts using a web browser.
Free Providers
- Google Groups is the biggest and best-known Usenet archive. It incorporates the old Deja News archives, as well as much historical material dating back as far as 1981. However, Google later launched its own discussion group service under the Google Groups brand, with no clear distinction between which groups were part of Usenet and which were proprietary to Google. It should also be noted that Google does not currently seem to add or delete any Usenet groups from their servers, so recently-created newsgroups may not be available. Google has stated that, from 22nd February 2024, Usenet posting access will be disabled and no new articles will be received on Google's servers. Usenet articles archived prior to that date will still be viewable.
- Rocksolid BBS and NovaBBS - two bulletin board systems running the Rocksolid Light software for NNTP-based forums. Currently carrying a large number of Usenet newsgroups.
- ElectronDepot provides access to a number of Usenet groups relating to electronics and embedded systems. The groups are shown under aliases to make them look more like web forums: the "Electronics Repair" forum is actually sci.electronics.repair, for example. It is noteworthy that this site appears to allow users to host images, and also makes an effort to filter out spam posts.
Read-Only Archives
- Narkive - no longer has search functionality and the list of groups accessible from the front page has been greatly reduced. However, it is still possible to see archives for other groups: to find the archive URL for a specific group, take the group name and append ".narkive.com" to it (so to see the archives of comp.lang.python, go to https://comp.lang.python.narkive.com).
- Usenet Archives - a searchable archive with posts dating back to the 1980s. However, searches tend to run extremely slowly.
- Yarchive - a collection of useful or interesting Usenet articles sorted by topic.
- Usenet Article Lookup by Howard Knight - look up a Usenet article if you know its Message-ID.
- olduse.net - as well as the time-shifted newsfeed service, the site offers an article lookup by Message-ID like the Howard Knight archive.
