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Giganews World Cup Special : $19.99 Unlimited Usenet

June 10, 2010 by NGR

Giganews is offering a World Cup special. Sign up now and enjoy unlimited Usenet access, free SSL and up to 50 connections for $19.99 a month!

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!

Giganews Unlimited Usenet + SSL = $19.99 For Life!

May 6, 2010 by NGR

Last Fall Giganews promised game changing updates to come. December marked the launch of VyprVPN. Adding another premium feature to their Diamond account that no other Usenet provider offers. Now they are bringing value to customers who want secure, reliable, unlimited Usenet access without the VPN option.

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!

Filed Under: Giganews, Usenet Providers Tagged With: Giganews $19.99 unlimited, Giganews lifetime discount, Giganews Playinum Plus, Giganews special

Could the Usenet Retention War be Nearing an End?

April 30, 2010 by NGR

The battle over binary retention started early last year when several Usenet providers including Giganews, Newshosting, UseNetServer, NewsDemon and Astraweb announced they were increasing binary retention into the 365-400 day ranges. By late Summer they had all surpassed the year mark and have been continuing to spool ever since. Now each service has reached 600 days of binary retention.

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

Filed Under: Astraweb, Giganews, Newshosting, Usenet Providers, UseNetServer Tagged With: binary retention, newsgroup retention, retention, Usenet retention

Giganews Crosses 600 Days of Binary Retention

March 30, 2010 by NGR

Giganews just set a new record for binary retention by crossing the 600 day mark with no end in sight. The service continues to innovate. Late last year Giganews added a VPN service (VyprVPN) and has since made it free to Diamond customers.

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.

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Usenet Providers Reach for 600 Days Binary Retention

March 28, 2010 by NGR

Several Usenet providers are about to hit the 600 day mark for binary retention. Here is a list of where each provider stands today:
– Giganews – 598 days
– Astraweb – 587 days
– NewsDemon – 571 days
– Newshosting – 571 days
– UseNetServer – 571 days

We’ve covered retention increases in several posts over the last year but it never fails. Each time we start preparing for the post we reflect on how far retention has come from the early days.

This time around we’d like to have some extra fun. If each of the Usenet providers listed above continues to grow retention daily here are the resulting dates when they will hit 600, 700, 800, 900 and 1,000 days of retention.

600 Days Binary Retention:
– Giganews – March 30th
– Astraweb – April 10th
– NewsDemon – April 26th
– Newshosting – April 26th
– UseNetServer – April 26th

700 Days Binary Retention:
– Giganews – July 8, 2010
– Astraweb – July 19, 2010
– NewsDemon – August 4, 2010
– Newshosting – August 4, 2010
– UseNetServer – August 4, 2010

800 Days Binary Retention:
– Giganews – October 16, 2010
– Astraweb – October 27, 2010
– NewsDemon – November 12, 2010
– Newshosting – November 12, 2010
– UseNetServer – November 12, 2010

900 Days Binary Retention:
– Giganews – January 24, 2011
– Astraweb – February 4, 2011
– NewsDemon – February 20, 2011
– Newshosting – February 20, 2011
– UseNetServer – February 20, 2011

1,000 Days Binary Retention:
– Giganews – May 4, 2011
– Astraweb – May 15th, 2011
– NewsDemon – May 31, 2011
– Newshosting – May 31, 2011
– UseNetServer – May 31, 2011

The dates are contingent on each newsgroup service continuing to spool retention daily. Visit our binary retention chart at anytime along the way to see where each provider stands.

Filed Under: Astraweb, Giganews, NewsDemon, Newshosting, Usenet Providers, UseNetServer Tagged With: 000 days binary retention, 1, 600 days binary retention, 700 days binary retention, 800 days binary retention, 900 days binary retention, binary retention

Giganews Members Get Free VyprVPN Access for Life!

March 16, 2010 by NGR

If you’ve read our VyprVPN review then you know Giganews has been testing Golden Frog’s VyprVPN service. Over the last few months Giganews Diamond customers had the opportunity to test drive the new VPN access as part of their normal monthly subscription.

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.

Filed Under: Giganews, Usenet Providers Tagged With: Giganews free vpn access, Giganews VPN, Giganews VyprVPN

Giganews Hosted NANOG 48 : Tested IPv6 Usenet

February 1, 2010 by NGR

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.

Filed Under: Giganews, Usenet Providers Tagged With: Giganews ipv6 usenet, Giganews NANOG48, IPv6 Usenet, NANOG, North American Network Operators Group

Giganews Earns Top Honors : 2010 Editors Choice

January 21, 2010 by NGR

Congratulations to Giganews who recently took top honors in our 2010 Editors Choice Awards. This is the third year Giganews has earned the #1 ranking on NGR. As an industry leader, Giganews continues to innovate and push the boundaries of Usenet forward. They lead the way in retention and recently added a new service called vyprVPN to help customers protect their privacy online.

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!

Filed Under: Giganews, Usenet Providers Tagged With: Giganews, Giganews 2010 Editors Choice Award

Giganews Offers VyprVPN Free to Diamond Customers

December 22, 2009 by NGR

Giganews just announced a new VPN service for all Diamond customers. The service (called VyprVPN) helps ensure your privacy online. VyprVPN is free for all Diamond account customers through June, 2010. Giganews has partnered with Golden Frog to offer VyprVPN and is promising more new and innovative products to come.

The VyprVPN service extends the same privacy, security and speed you enjoy from Giganews Usenet access to the rest of your Internet experience. We had a chance to test the VPN during the initial beta and were impressed with both the speed and reliability of the service.

VyprVPN allows you to privately and securely browse the web, e-mail, instant message, browse newsgroups and more by encrypting the traffic. The setup is very simple. You add a network connection for the VPN, replace your IP address with a VyprVPN IP and browse securely.

With VyprVPN you choose from a US or European IP address and can switch between the server clusters if necessary. The applications for VPN services are varied and include providing security for hotspot users, enabling VOIP applications and unlocking websites while abroad.

VyprVPN is available for several operating systems including Windows, Mac, Linux, iPhone and Windows Mobile. We tested the PC and iPhone versions last month.

Giganews will be offering VyprVPN access to Diamond customers free of charge through at least June 30th of next year. A very good deal considering VyprVPN and similar services cost around $15 a month.

Sign up for a Giganews Diamond account today and save 50% on your first month of service along with free VyprVPN access. To learn more read our Giganews review.

Filed Under: Giganews, Usenet Providers Tagged With: Giganews VPN, Golden Frog, VyprVPN

Giganews Customers Beta Testing VyprVPN Service

November 17, 2009 by NGR

You may have seen discussions in Usenet forums and Twitter lately regarding a new VPN service from Giganews. The VPN offering is called VyprVPN and is currently in beta.

According to the Giganews VyprVPN beta page the service offers the same privacy, security and speed you enjoy from Giganews Usenet access to the rest of your Internet experience.

The VyprVPN service allows you to privately and securely browse the web, e-mail, instant message, browse newsgroups and more by encrypting the traffic. The process sounds pretty simple. You replace your IP address with a VyprVPN IP and browse securely.

The VyprVPN service allows you to choose from a US or European IP address and switch between the server clusters at any time. The applications for VPN services are varied. Everything from providing security for hotspot users to enabling VOIP applications to unlocking websites overseas.

The VPN service supports multiple operating systems. In fact VyprVPN is available for just about every platform including Windows, Mac, Linux, iPhone, Windows Mobile and more.

The next question is price. Here is an explanation from the beta page:

*VyprVPN, valued at $14.99 per month, is guaranteed free to Diamond customers until June 30, 2010. By then, Giganews & Golden Frog will determine if there will be a charge for this service and notify you to opt-in to continue using VyprVPN. Giganews values our loyal Diamond customers and will not charge for this service without your express consent.

It appears Giganews will be giving VyprVPN access to Diamond customers free of charge through at least June 30th of next year. A good deal considering VyprVPN and similar services cost around $15 a month.

We look forward to bringing you more information in the near future. In the meantime visit the VyprVPN beta page to find out more. To learn about Giganews Usenet offerings read our Giganews review or sign up for a 14 day free trial.

Filed Under: Giganews, Usenet Providers Tagged With: Giganews, Giganews VPN, Vypr VPN, VyprVPN, VyprVPN beta