NewzToolz-EZ

Newsgroup Downloading Made Simple

Setup News Servers Window

This window can be opened from: Setup Menu -> Servers

If you are an AOL or MSN subscriber, read this first. These two ISP's use non-standard Usenet technology to force-feed you advertising while you look at newsgroups. They deliberately make it difficult for you to use programs like ezGroups, ezRAR, and ezNZB - but don't let that stop you!

Overview

ezGroups, ezRAR, and ezNZB download files from your ISP's news server. The news server is a very large, powerful, and complicated computer that is very expensive to operate. Your ISP does not allow just anybody to use it. Normally, you must either be directly connected to their network, and/or use a username and password that they give to you. Only your ISP can tell you this information. If you are a subscriber to our news service, then of course we will tell you how to access our server. But in all other cases, you must contact your ISP and ask them for three things:

  1. the "News Server URL"
  2. your "News Server Username"
  3. your "News Server Password"

Without having those three things, you cannot use ezGroups, ezRAR, ezNZB or any other newsgroup software.

Name box: Enter a descriptive name such as 'My News Server'. You may enter any name you like here.

Server URL box: If you don't know the URL of your news server, you may be able to find it in the settings of your news reader, or in the instructions that your ISP gave to you when you signed up with them. It should look something like this: news.yourISP.com. Only your ISP can tell you the URL, so if you don't know it, you must contact them.

Username and Password boxes: Enter a user name and password if your ISP requires you to do so. Otherwise, make sure to leave them blank. If you fill them in when they are not required, you may not be able to logon to the server. News servers often have a different username and password than those used to logon to your ISP, or retrieve your email. When in doubt, ask your ISP.

Keep in mind that many ISP's "throttle" their news servers. In other words, they deliberately make them run slowly to reduce their network traffic. So, your ISP may provide you with a blazing fast internet connection, but a news server that runs at a snail's pace. With most ISP's, the only way to get high performance is to also subscribe to a third-party news service such as ours.