f2s - Important News Concerning Usenet (news) Access

[richard_f2s]

Just to let you know that the following email is being sent out to customers that have been using the f2s news server over the past few months...

FAQs related to news access will be updated tomorrow.
_______________

Dear Customer,

Our records show that in the past few months you have accessed the freedom2surf Usenet server (news.freedom2surf.net) from your ADSL connection.

We would like to draw your attention to an important change to this service.

As part of your f2s ADSL subscription from 21st August 2007 we will be introducing access to enhanced news services which will include access to over 110,000 newsgroups, binary content newsgroups and retention of 130 days for binary and 1487 days for text. You will not need to make any changes to your newsreader other than to provide your ADSL user name and password when challenged (this is the same user name and password used by your router or modem to access your broadband connection). You will need to enter the user name exactly as provided to you taking note to use upper and lower case letters. An example of this would be ADSL01111111111@f2s.gw5

As you will be subscribing to your newsgroups on a different news service customers may notice that newsgroup articles that their news reader application has marked as "read" may become "unread" and that their news reader re-downloads previously loaded headers.

Please bear in mind that accessing binary content on newsgroups can result in a higher level of bandwidth usage than simple text content and although we have granted you a maximum of 20Gb newsgroup content per month, accessing newsgroup content during our peak, metered period will count towards your freedom2surf ADSL package quota which may be lower than the 20Gb maximum.

Should you experience a problem when accessing the servers please use our online support tool at http://support.freedom2surf.net/cgi-...nduser/ask.php

Regards

The freedom2surf team

[Hiro UK]

I'd love to know when in the past 2 months I used the F2S news servers because I've never used it since being with F2S.

And I've just tried it now and my username and password are rejected any way (of course that may be because they've taken the server down or something until tomorrow, so I can't say this has always been the case having never used the server in the past, let alone in the past 2 months).

[Chaz]

I think its a general one size fits all mail as you aren't the only one to question where the information came from!

Regardless, its pretty interesting to get a freebie!

[gomez]

I am wondering if your mail client does an automatic new-server check even if you have not explicitly set it up to access them. Maybe if the mail client was set up for F2S access using their Wizard (is there one?). I have accessed the F2S new server using Outlook Express but left F2S last month so they are obviously using an out of date mailing list possibly generated from news server access and not cross-checked against current account holders.

[Hiro UK]

I don't think any program does a search for new news servers unless you specifically set it up. I don't use a mail program for news groups any way, they just aren't geared toward it, especially not OE. I use XNews.

[Hiro UK]

Originally Posted by Chaz

Regardless, its pretty interesting to get a freebie!

Is the server off line until tomorrow or something, as I'm still getting an authentication error? Because I've never used the F2S news server before I'm not sure if it's just something happening at the moment. Guess I'll find out come tomorrow if my u/n and p/w are still rejected.

[aos101]

The email text above says they won't be introducing it until tomorrow, and news.freedom2surf.net still points to a F2S IP address, so they probably haven't moved over to the new server yet. Try connecting to it without authentication and see if that works.

[Hiro UK]

Works without a u/n and p/w, but it's only for a few text groups, which I believe is all they've ever carried until this recent decision to go full text and binary. The 130 day retention isn't of particular interest to me as I think that sort of retention isn't really needed as long as there is good completion and good speed, which I hope they have. Will save paying for a monthly service, or one of these block accounts.

[gomez]

Originally Posted by Hiro UK

Works without a u/n and p/w, but it's only for a few text groups,

Partially worked. Posts from F2S often never propogated to other servers and thus not widely seen and there were delays in seeing posts posted elsewhere. This is why I stayed with individual.net as my news-server even when it was no longer totally FOC.

[richard_f2s]

Now live. news.freedom2surf.net points at Giganews servers. f2s News FAQ also updated.

[Chaz]

I'll try it out when I get home, cheers Richard.

I should probably ask what happens if one changes their adsl password on the members area what happens?

[elrandom3]

No joy here, Windows Mail is stuck on "Authorizing.." and doesn't go any further... looking in my packet sniffer, I can see:

200 News.GigaNews.Com
MODE READER
480 authentication required
AUTHINFO USER adsl[edited]@f2s.gw6
381 more authentication required
AUTHINFO PASS [edited]
502 Access Denied via @f2s.gw6 auth server

Yet these are exactly the same username/password from my router... probably a glitch

[acidtechno]

I get the same sort of thing in thunderbird after putting user and pw in:

A News (NNTP) error occured: Access Denied via @f2s.gw4 auth server

I made a mistake, I'm on gw5, but I still get the same error.

[Hiro UK]

Have access now too. I was wondering if it was going to be a Giganews feed when it said 130 days retention for binary groups.

[Hiro UK]

Originally Posted by acidtechno

I get the same sort of thing in thunderbird after putting user and pw in:

A News (NNTP) error occured: Access Denied via @f2s.gw4 auth server

Could it be that certain usernames are set at different times? Mine ends @f2s.gw2. I'm not sure when I got access as I've only just checked again, but I last checked about half an hour ago and didn't have access.

[acidtechno]

balls up number 2,

I was using my old password from my previous f2s adsl account, I store my stuff somewhere unfortunately haven't updated the details, but found my f2s password e-mail to check.

I can report the service is connecting successfully.

[elrandom3]

Heh, I found out it helps if you actually read the OP...

You will need to enter the user name exactly as provided to you taking note to use upper and lower case letters. An example of this would be ADSL01111111111@f2s.gw5

Had mine all in lower case, putting it like this makes it work

[acidtechno]

Originally Posted by elrandom3

Heh, I found out it helps if you actually read the OP...

Had mine all in lower case, putting it like this makes it work

yeah, I was trying that, my problem was the wrong gw# ending at first with the wrong password, and then the right username but with wrong password. How messy can you get? must keep my records up to date in all the right places...

[Hiro UK]

Looks to be heavily throttled though. There's a max of 2 connections and I'm getting only 30KBytes/ps per connection. It might speed up during the off-peak hours though.

[Chaz]

There's no mention of a throttle in Richards post, who knows!

[Andrewr_f2s]

Originally Posted by Hiro UK

Looks to be heavily throttled though. There's a max of 2 connections and I'm getting only 30KBytes/ps per connection. It might speed up during the off-peak hours though.

That is correct. You are entitled to 2x threads at 30KBytes/ps each. the speed is set at this rate peak/off-peak.

@elrandom can you send me what you are using as your logon information.