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2025-06-04
A newsgroup is a public discussion system based on the NNTP protocol, also known as Usenet. It is similar to a giant bulletin board/forum where users can post articles in different “groups,” and other users can read and reply to them.
The 1980s and early 1990s were the golden age of newsgroups. At that time, it was almost the only large-scale public discussion platform on the Internet, witnessing many of the early Internet’s surging trends, such as the rise of the open-source movement. The archives of newsgroups from that era remain a treasure trove for exploring early Internet culture. However, with the rise of the Web, newsgroups have gradually faded from the historical stage.
Purely for fun, I set up a newsgroup server deployed on the server raye.mistivia.com. This newsgroup can be used as a knowledge base, a bulletin board, or even a chat room. Although not as powerful as the World Wide Web, it offers some unique “retro” fun.
Although it is an ancient protocol that is nearly obsolete, newsgroups are still supported by many clients, the most famous of which is Thunderbird. So, here I will use Thunderbird as an example to explain how to use newsgroups.
After opening Thunderbird, click the menu in the top right corner. Select “New Account” (or “Add Account”).
Select “Newsgroup”.
Enter your nickname (name) and email address.
Enter the server address: raye.mistivia.com.
Restart Thunderbird after adding the account.
In Thunderbird, newly added newsgroup servers use an insecure plaintext connection by default, so it is best to change it to a secure TLS connection.
Select the newsgroup server in the left sidebar and click “Account Settings”.
Then select “Server Settings”, and change “Connection security” to “SSL/TLS”.
Right-click on the newsgroup server you just added and select “Subscribe”.
Check the box for the “sharknews” group, and then confirm.
Select the “sharknews” group in the left sidebar, then click “Write” (or “New Message”):
You can now post an article to the newsgroup.
If you want to reply to a specific post, select the post you want to reply to, and then click “Reply to Group” (or “Reply List”). You can then post your reply within the thread.
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