For those more adventurous here is a summary of each guide without the screen captures:

Windows 7 Setup – (full VyprVPN Windows 7 setup guide)

1.  Click Windows Menu then Control Panel

2.  Click Network and Internet

3.  Click Network and Sharing Center

4.  Click Setup a new connection or network

5.  Click Connect to a workplace

6.  Click Use my Internet connection (VPN)

7.  Enter a VyprVPN server address and VyprVPN as the description

8.  Check Don’t connect now and click Next

9.  Enter your Username and Password

10.  Check Remember this password and click Create

To connect go to the Windows Taskbar and click the network icon.  Click on VyprVPN and then Connect.  To end your session click on VyprVPN and Disconnect.

MAC OS X Setup – (full VyprVPN Mac OS X setup guide)

1.  Click Apple and then System Preferences

2.  Click Network

3.  Click the (+) icon to add a connection

4.  Choose VPN, PPTP, set service name to VyprVPN and click Create

5.  Highlight VyprVPN on the left

8.  Enter the VyprVPN server address and your username

9.  Click Authentication Settings, enter your password and click OK

10.  Click Advanced and choose Send all traffic over VPN connection, Ok, Apply

To connect via Mac OS X click on Apple – system preferences – network – VyprVPN – Connect.   To end your session click Disconnect.

Apple iPhone Setup – (full VyprVPN iPhone setup guide)

1.  Tap Settings – General – Network – VPN

2.  Tap Add VPN Configuration

3.  Choose PPTP and enter VyprVPN in the description

4.  Enter a VyprVPN server address

5.  Enter the Username and Password

To connect to VyprVPN via iPhone toggle the VPN setting to ON.  To disconnect toggle the VPN setting to OFF

Apple iPad Setup – (full VyprVPN iPad setup guide)

1.  Tap Settings – General – Network – VPN

2.  Tap Add VPN Configuration

3.  Choose PPTP and enter VyprVPN in the description

4.  Enter a VyprVPN server address

5.  Enter the Username and Password

To connect to via iPad VyprVPN toggle the VPN setting to ON.  To disconnect toggle the VPN setting to OFF

We don’t know that much about Mimo or the related Usenet search engine yet but Giganews has a page available for those included in the Mimo preview and others who would like a future invite.

From previewing the Mimo page we can see that Golden Frog has packed some nice features into their Usenet client.  They mention its optimized for faster downloads, browsing and searches.  The client includes Giganews accelerator technology.  It supports thumbnail images, includes search functionality and allows you to filter based on binaries, text and images.  Auto unRAR and PAR features are also part of Mimo.

The Golden Frog Usenet search engine supports searching binaries across all groups.  Since Giganews is offering the technology preview we assume it can handle their industry leading 700+ days of retention.

Were you invited to the Mimo technology preview?  If so let us know what you think of the new Usenet browser.  Better yet let Golden Frog know as I’m sure they’d appreciate the user feedback.

If you would like to receive a future invite to test Mimo then click the “Request an invite” link at the top of the Mimo preview page.  It will direct you to login to your Diamond account via a special invite page.  Doing so will automatically add you too the Mimo tech preview waiting list as shown below.

Read our Giganews review to learn more about their Usenet services or sign up for a Giganews Diamond account and request an invitation to test Mimo.  Assuming they send out future invitations based on request date you might want to sign up soon!

How far will retention go and will Giganews continue to pull away from the competition?  One thing we do know – if the count continues to increase on a daily basis Giganews could hit 1,000 days of binary retention on May 4th of next year.  In 30 days they will be at two years of binary retention.  An amazing accomplishment considering they led the industry at 275 days last May.

Giganews has led the industry in binary retention for years now.  Those of us around awhile remember when getting access to a month of retention was a huge accomplishment.  Now the challenge is finding Usenet search engines that can handle 700 days.

Let’s look at some of the Giganews retention milestones along the road to 700 days:
- December 30, 2003 – 30 days binary retention
- August 8, 2005 – 50 days binary retention
- December 7, 2005 – 70 days binary retention
- April 3, 2006 – 1,000 days text retention
- September 19, 2006 – 90 days binary retention
- February 1, 2007 – 100 days binary retention
- April 12, 2007 – 120 days binary retention
- July 12, 2007 – 200 days binary retention
- September 19, 2008 – 240 days binary retention
- May 9, 2009 – 275 days binary retention
- June 3, 2009 – 300 days binary retention
- August 7, 2009 – 365 days binary retention
- September 11, 2009 – 400 days binary retention
- March 30, 2010 – 600 days binary retention
* click any link above to read the associated post on the Giganews blog.

According to the last slide on the Giganews home page they have more excitement coming this year.  To learn more about their Usenet services read our Giganews review or sign up for a 14 day free trial.

The Giganews World Cup special includes:
- $19.99 lifetime discounted price
- Unlimited Usenet access
- 670+ days of binary retention
- 2,500+ days of text retention
- Up to 50 simultaneous connections
- 256-bit SSL encryption
- Access to over 100,000 newsgroups
- Full header retention across all groups
- Giganews accelerator (header compression)
- Very reliable (99.9%+ completion rate)
- Server farms in the US, Europe and Asia
- Speeds exceeding 50+ Mbps
- 24/7 tech support

If you would like to add unlimited VPN access then move up to the Giganews Diamond account for $29.99 a month.  It has all the same great features plus VyprVPN access.  In addition Giganews is offering new Diamond customers a 14 day free trial and 50% off your first month of access.

Read our Giganews review to learn more or sign up for the Giganews World Cup special and enjoy!

For a limited time Giganews is offering a new account and lifetime discount.  With their new Platinum Plus account you can enjoy unlimited Usenet access, free SSL and up to 50 connections for $19.99 a month for life! (Sign up here)

The Giganews Platinum Plus account includes:
- $19.99 lifetime discounted price
- Unlimited Usenet access
- 635+ days of binary retention
- 2,500+ days of text retention
- Up to 50 simultaneous connections
- 256-bit SSL encryption
- Access to over 100,000 newsgroups
- Full header retention across all groups
- Giganews accelerator (header compression)
- Very reliable (99.9%+ completion rate)
- Server farms in the US, Europe and Asia
- Speeds exceeding 50+ Mbps
- 24/7 tech support

If you would like to add unlimited VPN access then move up to the Giganews Diamond account for $29.99 a month.  It has all the same great features plus VyprVPN access.

Read our Giganews Platinum Plus review to learn more or sign up and enjoy!

Could it be that the end of the retention war is nearing?  Earlier this week UseNetServer, Newshosting and others hit the 600 day mark for binary retention.  As we mentioned in our UNS post on Monday.  The 600 mark is a great achievement but it didn’t take us by surprise as each service has been growing retention daily for well over a year.  The surprise came when the increases stopped at 600 days.  Could this mark the end of the battle for UseNetServer, Newshosting and others?  Leaving Giganews and Astraweb to decide the final winner.

Maybe or maybe not.  We have no idea but let’s assume for a moment that Giganews, Astraweb and a handful of others are the only remaining Usenet providers increasing retention daily.  What does it mean for customers and the market as a whole?  Will Giganews and Astraweb reap the benefits?  Will sign ups suffer as the retention gap widens or might they actually increase?

If most providers stop at 600 days what does it mean to customers?

It depends on the user.  Some rarely download content over 200 days old and won’t care.  While others want the maximum number of days available and will choose based on retention levels.  Brings the “more than a mouthful” analogy to mind.

How might it effect the market?

A decision to stop at 600 days would leave Giganews, Astraweb and a handful of others to battle it out.  At $11 a month, Astraweb could have a hard time keeping pace with Giganews.  Not only in storage cost but in providing stable, reliabile service.  If they can pull it off though it would be a big win for them

Will Giganews and Astraweb reap the benefits?

Short term we think both services will see an increase in sign ups if the binary retention gap widens.  Over the long term it depends on price and reliability.  Given the price of Giganews accounts along with their history of high retention, we wouldn’t be surprised to see them spool well past the competition.  Along with adding more value through services like VyprVPN.

Will sign ups suffer if the retention gap widens or might they actually increase?

We need the crystal ball for this one.  Initially we suspect sign ups could suffer if the retention gap windens.  In three months if Astraweb is offering relioable service with 700 days of retention for $11 a month they could certainly benefit.  However, if service levels drop or Astraweb increases prices users could start migrating to UseNetServer who offers reliable service for $10 a month.

We’ll just have to wait and see how everything shakes out.  It will certainly make the next few months more interesting.

————

References:

Giganews retention:  631 days
Astraweb retention:  621 days
Newshosting retention: 600 days
UseNetServer retention: 600 days

Giganews – unlimited Usenet + VyprVPN
UseNetServer – $10 unlimited Usenet
Astraweb – $11 unlimited Usenet

How far will retention go and will Giganews start to pull away from the competition again this year?  One thing we do know – if the count continues to increase on a daily basis Giganews could hit 1,000 days of binary retention on May 4th of next year.

Giganews has led the industry in binary retention for years now.  Those of us around awhile remember when getting access to a month of retention was a huge accomplishment.  Now the challenge is finding search sites that can handle 600 days.

Let’s look at some of the Giganews retention milestones along the road to 600 days:
- December 30, 2003 – 30 days binary retention
- August 8, 2005 – 50 days binary retention
- December 7, 2005 – 70 days binary retention
- April 3, 2006 – 1,000 days text retention
- September 19, 2006 – 90 days binary retention
- February 1, 2007 – 100 days binary retention
- April 12, 2007 – 120 days binary retention
- July 12, 2007 – 200 days binary retention
- September 19, 2008 – 240 days binary retention
- May 9, 2009 – 275 days binary retention
- June 3, 2009 – 300 days binary retention
- August 7, 2009 – 365 days binary retention
- September 11, 2009 – 400 days binary retention
- March 30, 2010 – 600 days binary retention
* click any link above to read the associated post on the Giganews blog.

According to the last slide on the Giganews home page they have more excitement coming this year.  For now though to learn more about their Usenet services read our Giganews review or sign up for a 14 day free trial.

————————-

Related Giganews blog post:

Giganews Hits 600 Days of High Quality Retention!

Giganews is proud to announce that we are the first Usenet provider with 600 days of retention! Giganews now provides 600 days of retention with the same high quality and service Giganews customers expect. And we’re still growing! We continue to increase retention to provide Giganews customers with the best Usenet experience available.

Why Giganews Works So Well
We do it because we’re users, too (check out the newsgroup vyprvpn.giganews to see some candid discussions with Giganews employees on VyprVPN). Customers tell us everyday how frustrated they are with other Usenet providers because of poor completion rates and incompletes, especially among older articles. No one wants to deal with that. That’s why we built our service to have the same 100% availability, completeness, and unlimited speed regardless of how old the article is.

How It Works
So how do we do it? It all starts from the bottom up by building and maintaining all the systems for our services ourselves. We don’t outsource or contract this critical aspect of our Usenet service. Instead we’ve built all of our systems ourselves – from the hardware we own, the software we wrote, and the network we built. All this leads to smooth running systems providing the best Usenet experience available today. Plus, with our full time network and datacenter operations staff, we’ve got some very experienced people who make sure the Giganews service is always up and running.

We’ve hit 600 days. 700 here we come.

Originally free access to the VyprVPN service was set to expire on June 30, 2010.  However, we just received word from Giganews that VyprVPN is out of beta and they are extending the service to all Giganews Diamond members for the lifetime of your account.  A valuable add-on considering VyprVPN and similar offerings cost around $15 a month.

If you’re already a Giganews Diamond member and haven’t tried VyprVPN yet I would suggest you give it a good look.  We have been comparing several of the VPN services on the market and Golden Frog has done a fine job with their offering.

Those who aren’t currently with Giganews can sign up for a free 14 day trial.  Want to learn more?  Read our Giganews  / VyprVPN review.

NANOG 48 follow up:  Giganews tested IPv6 Usenet during NANOG 48 in Austin.

According to the Giganews blog post:

Giganews recently hosted the latest meeting of NANOG (North American Network Operators’ Group) in Austin, TX. At Giganews, we’re always looking to stay on the leading edge of Usenet service, so we viewed NANOG as the perfect opportunity to demonstrate our ongoing efforts to provide service to IPv6 networks. During the conference, NANOG48 attendees from all over the world received free access to Giganews’ service via IPv6.

IPv6 is the next generation of the Internet Protocol (IP) and allows for an almost limitless supply of IP addresses. Unfortunately the current IPv4 address space is limited to roughly 4 billion addresses, and it is projected to be exhausted in less than two years.

Several US Internet providers (e.g. Comcast) have recently announced plans to move their customers to IPv6 backbones. In Europe, IPv6 deployment is progressing more quickly. By providing native IPv6 service, Giganews customers with IPv6 addresses may access Usenet without their traffic going through IPv6-to-IPv4 translation equipment, which can fail or become a bandwidth chokepoint. With our early adoption of the technology, we can continue providing the premium quality service that our customers depend on us for!

Origiinal NANOG48 post:

Giganews will be hosting the 48th meeting of the North American Network Operators’ Group later this month.  The meeting will be held on February 21-24 at the Hilton in Austin, Texas.  This will mark the 48th meeting for NANOG and will be focused on Internet advancements and trends.

You may not be familiar with NANOG but their contributions are important to us all.  Rather than fumble through an explanation of the groups mission we’ll give you the scoop directly from the NANOG site:

NANOG is an educational and operational forum for the coordination and dissemination of technical information related to backbone/enterprise networking technologies and operational practices.

NANOG meetings are held three times each year, and include presentations, tutorials, and BOFs. The meetings are informal, and membership is open. Conference participants typically include senior engineering staff from tier 1 and tier 2 ISPs. Participating researchers present short summaries of their work for operator feedback.

The meeting will include senior engineers, researchers and operators from companies like Giganews, Data Foundry, Highwinds Network Group, Google, Akamai, Comcast, TW Telecom and many more.

In a related Giganews post Phillip Molter, CTO for Giganews explains:

“Giganews’ involvement in NANOG48 is a direct extension of our absolute commitment to providing the highest level of connectivity, throughput and security for our customers.  We’ve chosen to host this meeting, because, as a major network traffic source for tens of millions of people, we want to foster the continued growth of the Internet as an open—unlimited platform.”

Several Usenet providers are expected to be in attendance for NANOG48.  The list includes Giganews, Supernews, Power Usenet, Easynews, Newshosting and UseNetServer.  For more information or to sign up for NANOG48 visit http://www.nanog.org.

As mentioned in previous posts the Editors Choice Awards are given in recognition of the best Usenet providers based on factors including service level, performance, and value.  The providers bearing this title are thoroughly tested and evaluated by the NGR editors.  In earning top honors Giganews had stiff competition from our other Editors Choice selections which include Binverse, Astraweb, NewsDemon and Newshosting.

Let’s dive in and take a look at what gave Giganews the edge:

Giganews Account Features:

The premium features Giganews offers with their Diamond plan go well beyond other Usenet services.  For starters you get the highest retention rate at 532 days and counting.  Add to that unlimited speed (tested up to 50 mbps), 256-bit SSL encryption, 50 connections and 24/7 support.  Taking one more step, Giganews offers Diamond customers free unlimited VPN access.

Giganews VyprVPN Helps Protect Your Privacy Online
A few weeks ago Giganews announced a partnership with Golden Frog to offer Diamond customers free VPN access.  The service, called VyPrVPN, allows unlimited VPN usage and normally costs $14.99 a month.  From the feedback we’ve had so far the new VPN service appears to be performing quite well.  The inclusion with Diamond accounts is a great bonus!

Giganews Free Trial and 50% Off Special:
Giganews is offering all new customers a two week free Usenet trial including up to 10 GB of high speed downloads to test the service.  In addition Diamond accounts are currently being discounted 50% for the first month.  A savings of $15.00 over the normal price.

Giganews recent release of VyprVPN and partnership with Golden Frog is sure to bring more innovative features to our #1 ranked Usenet provider.  Will the competition catch up this year or will Giganews continue to forge ahead?  Stay tuned to find out!