Ummm... Do you have a newsreader? Forget about using Outlook Express or Netscape. get a dedicated newsreader. It's the only way to get the features that'll make life easy.
If you don't, I suggest that you go to
Forte, Inc and download Free Agent. That is the free version of their Agent newsreader. If you have a decent ISP, you will have access to a news server. Comcast doesn't qualify as decent. They farm it our to giganews and cap your downloads/uploads.
Anyway, you'll need to configure the news reader for your ISP's news server. They can provide you with the settings. ISPs frequently alias their news server name as "news" and restrict access to only their users, so that that is all you'll need to add for server name. After that:
- Update the list of groups
- Pick the ones you want to subscribe to
- Download message headers (subject line, length, date, poster)
- Choose which message to download
- Download.
Feel free to PM me and I'll be more than happy to step you through this in emails.
I've been using USENET since the beginning of time ;-)
It isn't hard and it isn't complex. It's actually fairly simple, though many groups are plagued by spam, you can find damn near anything you want on USENET. There is so much information available via USENET that it'll make your head spin.