A Guide to Newsgroups


For many, newsgroups are the only reason for having access to the Internet. There are newsgroups associated with every imaginable topic. Discussions and the exchange of ideas and experiences go on between people all over the world. They are a truly global forum.
You will need to subscribe to newsgroups (subscription is free) before you can post to them. Subscribing to a newsgroup means that you want to view all the messages people are posting to that newsgroup and may wish to post some messages of your own.

Once you have subscribed to newsgroups they will automatically appear in your Outlook Express main menu every time you open it. Please note that Microsoft Outlook does not support newsgroups so you will have to use Outlook Express or another program.

Once you have clicked on the newsgroup of your choice (and can view all the postings/messages relating to that newsgroup) you will see a row of buttons at the top of your screen (example below).

One of the buttons is labelled 'New Post'. If you click once on this button you will see a screen where you can create a new message to post to the newsgroup you are viewing. Once you have posted the message everybody who subscribes to that particular newsgroup will be able to see, and respond to, your message.

If you read a message which you would like to reply to, just click once on the 'Reply' button whilst viewing the message. This will allow you to reply/respond to that particular message. Your reply will then appear in the newsgroup.

Subscribing to newsgroups
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Subscribing to a newsgroup means that you want to view all the messages people are posting to that particular newsgroup and may wish to post some messages of your own.

The first thing you need to do to set up newsgroups is open Outlook Express (or whatever mail program you are using) by double clicking on the icon.

In Outlook Express you need to click once on the 'Tools' menu option. You then need to click once on 'Newsgroups'.



In Outlook Express the next screen you will see will appear empty at first - you will need to give the program a couple of moments to find all the newsgroups available (there are a lot of them). Once all the newsgroups have been found by the program you should see a screen similar to this.



This is where you choose the newsgroups you want to subscribe to. You can also 'unsubscribe' any existing newsgroups by clicking once on the 'Subscribed' tab at the bottom of the screen, highlighting the newsgroup and clicking the 'unsubscribe' button to the right.

To find newsgroups to subscribe to regarding a particular topic, for example 'music', you should click once in the box entitled 'Display newsgroups which contain' and type in the topic. The program will automatically search for newsgroups relating to your topic. Give the program a few moments to find the relevant newsgroups.



When you find a newsgroup you want to subscribe to click once on the newsgroup and click once on the button 'subscribe'.

Once you have subscribed to newsgroups, every time you open your mail program there will be an option to access these newsgroups (example left).

All you need to do is click once on the newsgroup of your choice and it will appear - be sure to give the program a few moments to load all the postings to the newsgroup.