Dudley Henriques wrote:

I used Thunderbird as well before RCN stopped handling Usenet. The
only trouble with TB is that being a mail program and news reader, it
still requires an ISP that handles Usenet. With Google Groups you
don't need an ISP who handles Usenet as it's an online reader. If you
have online access, you have Usenet :-))

You don't need an ISP that offers Usenet . There are a number of
newsservers available, some that you pay for, and some that are free. The
free servers typically only carry text groups, with no binaries.

Here, for example, is a list of free servers:

http://directory.google.com/Top/Comp..._News_Servers/

The most popular are Albasani, Motzarella, and AIOE:

http://albasani.net/
http://www.eternal-september.org/
http://www.news.aioe.org/

Using a newsserver means you can use a newsreader, rather than the more
awkward web access, but the downside, as you mention, is that you need the
software loaded, and don't have the universal access of a web browser.