What is a newsgroup? I tried to go to a newsgroup site, but I got a message saying I needed a reader. I am totally lost with this subject!

Hi ya newbie. allright, a newsgroup is a place where people can exchange informaition and ideas in a special forum or area. It is a hybrid of the forums you are using here and of and ICQ or chat service. But its not either. Think of it as a place where you post a sort of e-mail to, with a message of thread of information that is relevant to that newsgroup forum. Say you wanted to start a thread on the Evils of the M$ corporation or something, people then add messages to the newsgroup and the next time you log in the entire lot is downloaded to your computer for you to look at. Outlook express is a newsgroup reader. Your ISP will invariably have a news group address, looking like news.btinternet.com When you subscribe to it, a list of all the news groups is sent to your computer and you can search it via keywords and address You then download a chosen area onto your system and read the messages on line, add reply, like an on-line community

Thank you! Very informative. You mentioned Outlook as a newsgroup reader, but is there another good one out there that is good?

If you download netscape it has a reader included in it (messenger)

a good free reader is called "free agent" do a google search & u'll find it