Our quickstart guide is designed to get you up and running with the newsgroups as fast as possible in the least complicated way. We recommend you use this guide if you are interested in using the newsgroups right away without learning a lot of technical mumbo jumbo. Using the newsgroups for file sharing has become easier than ever thanks to new newsreaders that do almost all the confusing stuff for you.

To enjoy everything the newsgroups have to offer, you need three essential things:
1. A good newsgroup server - this is where your newsreader will download the files from.
2. A newsgroup reader - this is the program you will use to download from the newsgroups.
3. Access to an indexing site - this is where you will browse or search for things to download from the newsgroups.


Many newsreaders are free, however, access to newsgroup servers cost about $10-$30 a month (depending on factors discussed later in the guide). A good indexing site will cost a dollar or so a month and many are free. Most agree, however, the rather minimal investment yields tremendous rewards. Expect to wind up paying around $15-20 for a good setup that will give you amazing access to the newsgroups.

Download a free news reader. Setting up news readers back in the day was prohibitive, however, modern readers are tailor made for grabbing files from the newsgroups. All of Slyck's recommended news readers will not only grab the files from the news server, but also automatically repair and combine them for you, taking virtually all the hassle out of downloading from the newsgroups:

Ok, so you've purchased your Astraweb account, downloaded Altbinz, and now you're ready to start downloading. But newsgroup readers aren't P2P clients, and you'll need an independent indexing source to find the files you want. Basically, an indexing site is like Google. You conduct your search, and the site provides you with the location of the file. The indexing site communicates with the newsreader, and before long you'll be downloading. There's only a marginal cost involved for this service.