UseNetServer Review
2013 Editors' Choice Winner |
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UseNetServer (UNS) is currently offering unlimited newsgroup access to NGR visitors for $10 a month or $95 a year. A 45% discount off the normal price of $17.95/mo. for their UNS Hi-Speed Plus account. Couple this with 1,741 days binary retention, 99%+ completion rate, free SSL and global search tool and you’ve got a very solid service at a great value.
Binary Retention – UseNetServer provides
1,741 days of binary retention,
1,095 days text retention and over
85,000 newsgroups. UNS has released a new site design and retention announcement. They are currently spooling at
1,741 days binary retention.
Speed – we tested using a UseNetServer Hi-Speed Plus account and maxed out a our 40 Mbps connection with SSL enabled. Connections ranged from 35-40 Mbps during header downloads. Binary file downloads ran consistently at aorund 40 Mbps. While we didn’t need it UNS also offers a routing tool to optimize connection speeds.
Connections - the UNS Hi-Speed Plus plan includes
20
connections versus the standard 10. If you want maximum speed the High-Speed Plus plan is well worth the difference in cost.
UNS Global Search – the UseNetServer global search tool provides a nice online interface for searching newsgroups. It offers a number of filters to narrow down search results. Our initial Ubuntu search netted 598 results. Narrowing the search to a specific newsgroup cut the results in half. We then used the global search tool to easily create the NZB file. This method will save you time over downloading headers.
Security / Privacy – UseNetServer offers free 256 bit SSL access to all customers. We always run secure and had no problems. Note – if you start out connecting to the news.usenetserver.com server and then enable SSL make sure to change your server address to secure.usenetserver.com.
Alternate Ports – UseNetServer supports alternate ports to avoid bandwidth throttling. For normal access you can use ports 119 (default), 23, 25, 1720, 3128 or 8080. For secure SSL access choose between port 443, 563 and 8080. This can make a huge speed difference with some ISP’s that limit traffic based on port.
Support – UNS offers 24/7 customer support via phone, email and chat. They have some of the best technical support in the industry. You can expect fast, knowledgeable responses to questions.
Retail Pricing – UseNetServer retail pricing is simple. They offer two unlimited download plans. The UNS Hi-Speed Plus plan which includes
20 connections for $17.95/mo. They also offer a monthly 10 connection plan for $14.95/mo. Both plans offer free SSL encryption.
UNS $10 a Month Lifetime Special - UseNetServer is currently offering their High-Speed Plus access to new customers for $10 a month for life. See their UseNetServer $10 deal page for for more details.
UNS $95 Annual Lifetime Special - UNS is also offering their High-Speed Plus access to new customers for $95 a year for life which works out to only $7.95 a month. See our UseNetServer $95 deal page for for more details.
Bottom Line – UseNetServer has been around a long time. Their pricing and retention make the service an exceptional value. That along with their reliability and UNS global search feature helped them earn top honors in our 2013 NGR Editors Choice awards. We highly recommend UseNetServer to anyone who enjoys downloading from Usenet.
