How to Read a Newsgroup on the Internet

Internet newsgroups are a great way to share information online. Once you have a news reader set up on your computer, reading and posting to newsgroups is relatively simple.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Internet Access

1. Get your news server name from your ISP or network administrator.

2. Determine whether your current ISP software, e-mail program or Web browser includes a news-reading utility (many do). If not, download and install one.

3. Configure your news reader by inputting your news server address and any other information it requests (it might ask for an e-mail address and mail server as well).

4. Use your reader to call up a list of available newsgroups. This list will probably pop up during setup the first time you use your reader.

5. Look through the hierarchical list of newsgroups to find any that sound interesting. Let the prefixes of each group (such as 'comp' for computer-related topics and 'rec' for recreational topics) guide your search. The other words in the name go from general to more specific keywords.

6. Subscribe to whichever newsgroups you want to read or post to. (Note that some readers allow you to read newsgroup messages without your having to subscribe.)

7. Select the newsgroup you want to read.

8. Select a message by double-clicking on the subject. (Note that different readers may have different ways of reading messages.)

Tips & Warnings

• Newsgroup names are preceded by a prefix, followed by a series of words separated by dots. Common prefixes include "comp" for computer-related topics, "rec" for recreational subjects, "soc" for cultural and sociological newsgroups and "alt" for "alternative" topics. There are also many regional prefixes, such as "ba" for the San Francisco Bay area. The other words in the name go from general to more specific keywords. Sample newsgroup names include rec.food.recipes, soc.culture.jewish and rec.music.folk. There might be many newsgroups in one "hierarchy level"; for example, rec.food.cooking and rec.food.drinks are two other rec.food newsgroups.
• Your ISP or network may not subscribe to all the newsgroups you want to read. If your ISP provides direct Internet access, use a separate reader to maximize your access to the Internet. Newsgroups that begin with "alt" may be especially hard to find on ISPs.
• If you come across a newsgroup message that appears to be gibberish, it may be a message encrypted into "Rot13." This is an encryption code that replaces each letter with the letter 13 spots ahead of it in the alphabet. This coding is used mainly to protect people from possibly offensive postings. You can decode these messages by hand, or see if your reader has a Rot13 decoding utility.

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