Sad news of Mozilla. It's time, finally, to delete Firefox.
Now I want to replace Thunderbird. It's been a battle recently, slow or freezing, unable to connect to the usenet server.
Yes, I still use Usenet. Not for binaries, but for the discussion groups. They are somewhat deserted now, but perhaps some of those who followed the lures of money-making platforms will return.
#Recommendations, please, for access to #Usenet?
One option for access to text-only Usenet is a web gateway I operate at newsgrouper.org.uk/ . There are a few others also: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web-base… .
Indeed, large parts of Usenet are essentially dead, but there are some corners where worthwhile discussion continues. I try to indicate the most active groups at newsgrouper.org.uk/tops . Spam has reduced greatly since google groups disconnected last year.
#usenet
Read and post to Usenet Newsgroups with a simple web interface.newsgrouper.org.uk
while i'm sad to see #reddit circling the toilet, it only reminded me of how urgent it is that we finally ditch centralized social media. reddit itself isn't the problem - it's a symptom of a much more generalized problem we've had since FB became a thing in the late 00's.
i've spent the past week re-purposing, patching, porting, and expanding a great piece of software based on the same #nntp protocol that #usenet uses, for creating discussion groups. i'm calling it "tomo" (友 - 'friend') bbs.
some time soon folks can spin up their own tomo shards, create discussion groups in a similar manner to reddit, decide whether they want to keep the group restricted to their shard, or share the group with other tomo shards in a public network of discussion groups called tomonet. completely decentralized private or public discussions without supercorporation bs.
best of all, since it is based on plain 'ol usenet-like nntp, you can read and post to discussion groups from a 1977 VAX mainframe, a 1984 IBM PCjr at 2400 baud, an Apple Newton, or a brand new phone.
i can't wait to bust out forté free agent for windows 3.11 and get posting this weekend. 😎
