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| Welcome to our FAQ page. If the answer to your question is not listed below, please contact our Support Team. This page is best viewed with Javascript enabled. |
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Why choose ThunderNews? |
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What is ThunderNews? |
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ThunderNews.com is a premium Usenet newsgroup provider. Our servers peer with hundreds of other Usenet news servers across the Usenet to provide our users access to every newsgroup available. We offer the best combination of connection speed, excellent article completeness and long article retention available - all uncensored, unfiltered and without logs. |
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What Newsgroups do you carry? |
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We carry almost every active newsgroup available. |
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How long are messages and their attachments available? |
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Our ThunderNews news server has one of the longest retention times available anywhere. We maintain text discussion groups for up to 180 days and binary newsgroups for up to 116 days. |
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Are the newsgroups really unfiltered and uncensored? |
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Yes. At ThunderNews.com you will find the newsgroups available from our server as they appear on the Usenet. Your privacy is important to us. At ThunderNews.com we do not log what newsgroups or articles you read. |
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What Types of Accounts Are Available? |
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What types of accounts are available? |
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ThunderNews offers a range of accounts from 15 GB to Unlimited per month.
Our regular accounts are NOT speed limited. You can configure up to 20 connections to our Usenet servers. You can connect as fast as your ISP connection will allow! |
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What features make ThunderNews the best news service available? |
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We are confident that you will be very pleased with our news server's speed, excellent completion rates and long retention. We make it our mission to provide our customers with great customer service. We provide easy to use account management tools and are pleased to offer our customers a customized, registered copy of News Rover newsreader client for FREE. |
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Is my personal information secure? |
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We use 128 bit secure encryption to encode your account information and we take appropriate steps to ensure your information remains secure.
We do not release our users’ personal information to third parties except for those who process financial transactions for your account. Our Privacy Policy is available for your review. |
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How many simultaneous sessions can I have? |
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At ThunderNews we want you to experience the full speed of our Usenet servers. We allow you to configure your newsreader software for up to 20 connections from the same computer. |
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Do you monitor or log what articles I read? |
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Absolutely not! At ThunderNews.com we keep no logs of what groups you visit or what articles you read. |
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How do you measure my usage? |
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Usage is measured in bytes as it leaves our servers. Bytes will be charged against your usage limit as they occur. Message headers are included in the measurement. |
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How Do I Join ThunderNews.com? |
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How do I sign up for an account? |
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We welcome you to sign up for an account on the Signup page. If you have any questions not answered in our FAQ page, please contact us by the Support page.
Not sure? Request a Free 3 day test account from our Support Team. We are confident once you experience the speed of our servers, long article retention and excellent completion rates, you will want to join ThunderNews.com. |
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How will I receive my User ID and Password? |
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You will receive your User ID and Password along with instructions on how to set up News Rover for our news server at the e-mail address you provide during the sign up process. The e-mail provides information you can use to configure other newsreader clients as well. |
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How soon is service available once I sign up? |
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Normally, your account is created within minutes after your transaction processes successfully. If you have not received your confirmation e-mail within 1-2 hours after signing up, please check your e-mail spam filters to be sure they have not rejected our information e-mail to you. Please contact us on the ThunderNews Support page if you do not receive your e-mail within 1 - 2 hours. |
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How am I billed? |
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Our accounts are billed in 30 day increments. At the end of 30 days your account will be renewed charging your credit card or PayPal account. If you have submitted a cancellation notice during the current month, your account will not be renewed and service will end.
If you have enabled Auto Recycling, your account will renew automatically within 30 mintues to an hour of you reaching your usage limit. This feature allows you to prevent service interruption. If your account is Auto Recycled, your 30 days service resets for 30 days from the day it was recycled. You can enable or disable Auto Recycling in the Account Dashboard on the Your Account page. |
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What if there is a problem with my credit card? |
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If you are a new user and your card is declined, be sure you are entering the information exactly as it appears on your card. Your address should be appropriate for the card as well.
If you are an existing customer and your card expires or is declined, you will need to update your payment account information in the Account Dashboard on the Your Account page.
If you have repeated trouble getting a card to authorize, try another one or contact us on the Support page. You may also want to consider using PayPal as your payment method. |
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How Do I Manage My Account? |
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How do I upgrade or downgrade my account? |
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You choose to upgrade or downgrade your account in the Account Dashboard on the Your Account page by choosing Upgrade / Downgrade Acct on the left menu. |
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I reached my usage limit. How can I renew my account? |
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If Auto Recycling is enabled on your account, you do not need to do anything. Our system will renew your account within 30 minutes to an hour of reaching the limit.
If you have disabled Auto Recycling, there are two options:
1) You can Upgrade your account to a higher usage level in Account Dashboard on the Your Account page. Upgrading will renew your usage limit and reset your account for another 30 days.
2) You can toggle Auto Recycling to Enabled on the Account Dashboard on the Your Account page for a few hours. In 1-2 hours time, our system will renew your account and bill your payment method. Once your account renews, you can toggle Auto Recycling back Disabled if you choose.
If you find yourself manually renewing your account often, you might want to consider enabling Auto Recycling so that your account will renew by itself if you reach your usage limit or you may want to consider Upgrading to a more cost effective higher usage account. |
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What is account Auto Recycling? |
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Auto Recycling is a feature we developed on request from our users. Auto Recycling prevents service interruption by automatically renewing your account at the same service level you currently have within 30 minutes to an hour of you reaching your usage limit if you reach your limit before the normal 30 days is up.
If your account Auto Recycles, your usage limit will renew and your account will reset for another 30 days from that day. You can enable or disable Auto Recycling in the Account Dashboard on the Your Account page. |
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What time does my account renew? |
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Accounts normally renew during the 24 hour period before your 30 day service anniversary expires.
Accounts that are Auto Recycled or Upgraded, should renew in one hour or less after the payment transaction processes successfully.
If your credit card has expired or is declined, the renewal process will fail. If renewal fails, please update your payment information on the Account Dashboard. |
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Can I view my past invoices online? |
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Yes. ThunderNews provides your account history to you online in the My Account History section on the Your Account page. |
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How can I keep track of my usage? How much do I have left? |
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You can track your usage bytes and remaining bandwidth balance on the Your Account page. |
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How do I cancel my account? How can I reinstate my account? |
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Use the Account Dashboard on the Your Account page and choose Cancel Account. If you cancel your account, your service will continue until the current service period runs out. Refunds are not issued. You may reinstate your account by contacting our Support Department. |
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Support Questions |
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What are 502 messages and why am I getting them? |
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502 messages are server authentication errors. There are two likely causes:
1) You have reached your usage limit and the news server will not allow you to log in. You can Upgrade or Renew your account with the Account Dashboard on the Your Account page.
2) If you are a new user, check to be sure you have configured your newsreader software completely - particularly the username, password and news server URL. See our News Rover Download and Configuration Tutorial on the Account Dashboard. |
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What are the settings to configure my newsreader software to access your news server? |
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Our Standard newserver name is: news.thundernews.com.
The default port is: 119 (you may also use ports 23, 25, 80, 3128).
Configure your newsreader for: user id and password required.
Enter your User ID and Password issued by ThunderNews.com
You may configure your newsreader software for up to 8 connections on accounts on our Standard server and up to 20 connections on our Premium servers.
We have put together a Tutorial for Downloading and Configuring News Rover which is available on the Member's Account Dashboard. We provide News Rover FREE of charge to all our customers. |
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Can I log in from multiple computers? |
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Our accounts are designed for single users and their immediate families. You may not share accounts. You may connect from multiple IP addresses with ThunderNews accounts that have a defined usage quantity per month. Unlimited accounts are not allowed to connect from multiple IP addresses. Our Acceptable Use Policy outlines our policy on account usage. |
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How can I minimize the volume of headers I retrieve? |
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The newsreader client software we offer FREE to our customers, News Rover, has some excellent search features built in. If you are looking for something specific, use the search features to find exactly what you want across all newsgroups. This can save you retreiving excess headers. |
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The message I retreived is smaller than the number of bytes that were charged. Why? |
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All messages are encoded as text when they are uploaded to the Usenet. If you retrieved a message that had a file attachment, it was encoded as text as well. Messages with text encoded file attachments are not as efficient at storing information as the original files. The difference can be up to 40% depending on the encoding method chosen for the message by the message poster. |
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Can you add a newsgroup for me? Can I start my own newsgroup? |
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Yes. If we do not carry a newsgroup you are interested in, we will be glad to add it. If you would like to start your own group, we will work with you to set it up. Contact us through the Support page. |
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I get an error that there are too many connections to the news server and my connection is refused. Why? |
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The most likely cause is that your newsreader client software is attempting to make more simultaneous connections (8 or 20 depending on your account type) to the new server. The server will disconnect all sessions if the newsreader client exceeds the limit. Try reducing the number of connections by one until you no longer receive the error. |
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News Rover V13.1 Now Available in Members Area!
