Giganews is one of the biggest and oldest premium Usenet Providers out there. Giganews has always offered the longest binary retention and text retention. They also boast great article completion and fastest download rates.
Giganews has been setting the standards across the Usenet service provider industry. With most (if not all) of the ground breaking services coming from Giganews first.
Giganews is classed as a Tier 1 provider, this means they own and provider their own network. Other providers may use their services or “resell” Giganews’ services. As you may expect, its often best to go direct to the top provider. This is certainly the case with Giganews, as you get a LOT more for your money.
Giganews offers a FREE 14 day trial of their services for all new customers. This is great for you the end user, as it enables you to test for certain newsgroups, speed and completion.
Pricing Packages , Free Trial
Giganews offers five different tiered plans. Only credit cards and PayPal are accepted, with no option to use Bitcoin or other third-party payment systems.
The most basic plan at $4.99 (GBP 3.69, as of press time) is called Pearl, which gives users 5GB of downloads per month, 20 connections, and just 30 days of retention. Bronze bumps that up to 10GB per month and maximum retention, 2,367 days, for $9.99 (GBP 7.39) per month. Silver is the same as bronze except for an increased 50GB download limit for $14.99 (GBP 11.09) per month. Platinum removes the data cap entirely and tosses in a VPN for $19.99 (GBP 14.79) per month. Finally, the Diamond plan adds 30 more connections for a total of 50, includes a VPN, and offers unlimited downloading for $29.99 (GBP 22.19) per month, however a promotional offer makes it just $14.99 per month for the first three months.
When it comes down to cost-per-GB, Giganews is more expensive than its average competitor.
A 14-day free trial is available, which includes a 10GB data cap, 20 connections, and the full retention period.
Features
Giganews is our top rated USENET Provider offering the best in binary retention, article completion and download rates. NewsServers.net is pleased to offer you two exclusive holiday discount specials.
Platinum Special – $19.99/m – Basic VPN/Newsreader
Diamond Special – $14.99/m – Pro VPN/Newsreader
Newsgroup Binary Retention Rates
Giganews currently offers 2367 days of binary retention and close to six years of text retention. Giganews is and has always the market leader when it comes to binary retention and download speeds.
Free Trial Details
Giganews has a generous 14 day / 10 GB Free Usenet Trial. Note: You will get billed if you reach either of these limits so be sure to login to the control panel to check how much you have downloaded.
Download Speeds
Download rates are only restricted by your ISP and your Internet connection. In my testing I was able to consistently max out my 20 Megabit Verizon FIOS connection. Users from the Netherlands report being able to saturate 200 MBs connections via the European data center. Due to so many variables in a typical Internet connection – the best way to test their speed is to sign up for a free trial and decide yourself.
Security/Anonymity
SSL connections are included on all accounts by default and it is always a good idea to enable SSL both to avoid bandwidth shaping and to keep your downloads more anonymous. Giganews does their best to protect your privacy and security however they are subject to US law so uploading copyrighted material via Giganews would not be a good idea as Giganews does not support anonymous payments like bitcoin. Generally if you are downloading anything from USENET and you have SSL activated you are completely anonymous. Check out their privacy policy here for the most up to date information.
Other Features
Giganews started from a small family owned business and has a lot of pride in their products. It shows in their products. They are always been the market leader in binary retention and they have been developing and adding new products like VyprDNS ( DNS leak protection service) and VyprVPN ( a VPN Service) to beef up their service offerings. They have historically been the most expensive provider but we feel with our discount links – that right now especially the Giganews Platinum plan is a good deal. Other well known providers such as Astraweb and Newshosting , etc are close on their heels with retention numbers but Giganews keeps innovating with new and additional service offerings.
Giganews users can take advantage of 256-bit SSL-encrypted transfers, which prevent ISPs and other snoops from viewing what users are downloading.
Customer support
Giganews is one of the few Usenet providers that features actual 24/7 live support, and not just a ticket submission system. We tried it out for ourselves and got a representative on the line in a matter of seconds. However, the rep was unable to help us with our issue (some of our downloads were hanging) and quickly moved our issue into an email ticket instead. He said multiple experts would be able to review the problem this way. We were a bit disappointed that the live chat rep didn’t make much of an effort to resolve the problem himself. It took about four emails over 24 hours to come to what was a fairly straightforward solution.
Conclusion
Giganews has every feature you are looking for in a USENET service provider and is the clear market leader. Thanks to our special pricing you will save even more. $20/month is not much considering you will have access to the best USENET service plus VPN, newsreader and secure cloud storage bundle.
Recommendation
Giganews is one of our highest recommended providers with a strong emphasis on quality. Make up your own mind but I strongly suggest checking out their free trial and remember use one of our discounted links for saving.
