Tutorial: Usenet introduction for beginners
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Usenet 101
Since there are many tutorials at this site, I can imagine that you don't know where to begin, so here is an introduction.
What are binary Usenet newsgroups?
This website is all about binary Usenet newsgroups, but what exactly are they? Usenet newsgroups have existed for quite a while and were originally meant as a place for discussions using text messages. The name of the Usenet newsgroup shows the subject discussed in that specific group. However, Usenet newsgroups can also be used for posting binaries (a general term for encoded data, like programs or music), which has become much more popular with the introduction of broadband connections to the Internet. You can recognize a binary Usenet newsgroup by the word binaries in the name of the group, for example alt.binaries.freeware.
So what can be learnt at this website? Here at Binaries4all you will find all information that you need to be able to work with binary Usenet newsgroups.
Are binary Usenet newsgroups kind of like Kazaa?
Many people think binary Usenet newsgroups are rather like Kazaa (or other P2P programs), but this is not true! There are fundamental differences between the two, even though they can both be used for downloading. You can easily search for something on Kazaa, but what is on offer depends on the people who are connected to Kazaa at that very moment. Usenet newsgroups work differently: someone posts something to a binary newsserver, then all the newsservers exchange data and someone else can download it using his or her news server. How long the files are available on a newsserver depends on the quality of the newsserver. Some ISP’s think of it as an extra and don’t pay it very much attention at all. On most ISP’s you can download a post for about three days, in other words a retention of three days. Sometimes the files provided on a news server are incomplete, and this also depends on the quality of the news server. There are also payservers, however, on which posted files are available for more than two weeks.
Advantages of binary Usenet newsgroups over Kazaa:
- Higher speed; you can use the full speed of your Internet connection.
- More files available.
- Not dependent on other users for downloading.
- Less rubbish; Kazaa is swamped with fake files and viruses.
Disadvantages of binary Usenet newsgroups over Kazaa:
- You have to respond more quickly, because the files aren't permanently on a server. However, that isn't that much of an issue anymore nowadays, because many payservers offer a retention of several hundreds of days.
Where to begin?
The basics of working with binary Usenet newsgroups are explained in the following chapters, divided in two topics: downloading and posting.
Important: take your time! Do not expect that you have downloaded what you are looking for between now and one hour. Learning how to work with binary Usenet newsgroups completely just requires some time! This is NOT because it is so difficult (don't let us scare you), but just because the process consists of a couple of steps. Again: do not try to comprehend everything in thirty minutes, take your time!
To the next chapter: 
Downloading