Eternal September

eternal-september.org · Storage · 2 records · JSON

Eternal September (news.eternal-september.org) — free NNTP read/write Storagefails: quotacountry-phoneno cardphoneRper-object-cap
usenet / nntp free providers Storagefails: quotaemail?card?R

Eternal September (news.eternal-september.org) — free NNTP read/write Storage

fails: quotacountry-phoneno cardphoneRper-object-cap

www.eternal-september.org/ · messaging · storage/eternal-september-free-nntp-read-write · JSON · compare

Free tier	No byte quota. Free read AND write access to all text newsgroups after online registration. 281 hierarchies, alt.* alone is 8,728 groups, free.* is 1,284. Retention: '3 years for de., 160 days for the Big 8, 130 days for alt., 90 days for other hierarchies'. unit mixed; metered on unstated
Price	none stated
Per-object cap	per-object-cap: 'No articles larger than 1000 KB (1000000 bytes)
Retention	Retention: '3 years for de., 160 days for the Big 8, 130 days for alt., 90 days for other hierarchies' (160 days)
Egress	Free; server has a 1 Gbit connection to several backbones and peers with 40+ sites. Articles are world-readable and propagate to every peer, so egress is effectively subsidised by the whole Usenet mesh.
Identity	country-phone derived from the record's prose, not from an identity field, and no signup was executed: access to all text newsgroups after online registration. 281 hierarchies, alt.* alone is 8,728 groups, free.* is 1,284. Retention: '3 years for de.*, 160 days for the Big 8, 130 da
Limits	retention-clamped Retention: '3 years source retention-clamped Retention: 90-160 days source per-object-cap per-object-cap: 'No articles larger than 1000 KB source per-object-cap: 'No articles larger than 1000 KB' — hard 1 MB per article, and 'no binaries in text-only groups': binaries are only allowed in alt.binaries.* / de.alt.dateien., which this server does NOT carry ('no binaries'). Request-rate: anti-spam gates — no more than 3 distinct From: addresses per 24 h, 5 per 7 days, 8 per 30 days ('Excessive nymshifting'), with cancellation at 12 nyms/60 days. Retention: 90-160 days for most hierarchies, 3 years only for de..
Binding	per-object-cap the per-object cap sets the shard size and therefore the object count; it bounds the total more tightly than any headline quota
Interface	rest rest
Tooling	Standard NNTP (RFC 3977) on port 119/563. Every Usenet client works: tin, slrn, Gnus, Thunderbird, Pan; programmatically via nntplib (Python) or any NNTP library. No bespoke wrapper needed. The docs give exact per-client auth config for ~10 clients.
Composes with	Per-record unlimited is the theoretical shape: a text article can carry base64, and there are 8,728 alt.* groups x 1,284 free.* groups x unlimited articles each. The multiplier would be 'groups x posts', which is effectively unbounded. BUT the per-record cap (1000 KB) and text-only rule kill it as a bulk store — see limits.
Reliability	Two technical blockers found by probing: (1) NNTP ports are unreachable from this network — TCP to news.eternal-september.org:563 timed out and :119 also timed out, so the transport may be firewalled depending on where you run; (2) accounts are auto-closed after 18 months of inactivity. Also note the server deliberately does NOT honour Cancels/Supersedes from other servers ('an article stored on our server can neither be deleted by a Cancel nor be overwritten by a Supersedes'), which is a rare retention plus.
Notes	No byte quota. Free read AND write access to all text newsgroups after online registration. 281 hierarchies, alt.* alone is 8,728 groups, free.* is 1,284. Retention: '3 years for de., 160 days for the Big 8, 130 days for alt., 90 days for other hierarchies'.
Evidence rung	reported One page read moves it to documented.
Checked	2026-10-21 (inherited); stale on 2026-11-04
Parsed numbers	`$.limits[2].value` limit:per-object-cap 1000.0 KB

Evidence (5)

date	source	what it proved
2026-10-21	www.eternal-september.org/	'free read and write access to all text newsgroups'; 'no binaries'; retention '3 years for de., 160 days for the Big 8, 130 days for alt., 90 days for other hierarchies'
2026-10-21	www.eternal-september.org/index.php?showpage=terms	'No articles larger than 1000 KB'; 'no binaries in text-only groups'
2026-10-21	www.eternal-september.org/index.php?showpage=faq	nymshifting limits (3/24h, 5/7d, 8/30d); 'Accounts with Eternal-September will be automatically closed after 18 months of inactivity'; Cancels/Supersedes deliberately not honoured
2026-10-21	www.eternal-september.org/hierarchies.php	281 hierarchies; alt.* 8,728 groups; free.* 1,284 groups
2026-10-21	withheld	probe: TCP news.eternal-september.org:119 and :563 -> both timeout (blocked from this network)

More fields (1)

{
 "dead_end": {
  "failure_class": "retention",
  "why": "No byte quota. Free read AND write access to all *text* newsgroups after online registration. 281 hierarchies, alt.* alone is 8,728 groups, free.* is 1,284. Retention: '3 years for de.*, 160 days for the Big 8, 130 days for alt.*, 90 days for other hierarchies'.",
  "retry_when": null,
  "first_recorded": "2026-10-21"
 }
}

Unknown or withheld values (5)

$.evidence[4].url private-url
$.extras.dead_end.retry_when process
$.free_tier.notes process
$.per_object_cap.notes not-extracted
$.retention.notes not-extracted

usenet / nntp free providers Storage

fails: quotaemail?card?R

www.eternal-september.org/ · rejected-provider · storage/usenet-nntp-free-providers · JSON · compare

Free tier	No free binary provider with usable retention exists. The only genuinely free, posting-allowed server found (Eternal September) is text-only, explicitly 'no binaries', with 130-day retention unit none; metered on none
Price	none stated
Per-object cap	not recorded
Retention	not recorded
Egress	not recorded
Identity	email (placeholder) not published
Binding	none no constraint of a named kind was recorded; the verdict rests on the quota sentence rather than on a named limit
Interface	unknown
Tooling	not recorded
Composes with	not recorded
Reliability	No free binary provider with usable retention exists. The only genuinely free, posting-allowed server found (Eternal September) is text-only, explicitly 'no binaries', with 130-day retention
Notes	No free binary provider with usable retention exists. The only genuinely free, posting-allowed server found (Eternal September) is text-only, explicitly 'no binaries', with 130-day retention
Evidence rung	reported
Checked	2026-10-21 (inherited); stale on 2026-11-04

Evidence (2)

date	source	what it proved
2026-10-21	www.eternal-september.org/	No free binary provider with usable retention exists. The only genuinely free, posting-allowed server found (Eternal September) is text-only, explicitly 'no binaries', with 130-day retention
2026-10-21	4usenet.com/articles/best-free-usenet	cited as the basis of the rejection: No free binary provider with usable retention exists. The only genuinely free, posting-allowed server found (Eternal September) is text-only, explicitly 'no binaries', with 130-day retention

More fields (1)

{
 "dead_end": {
  "failure_class": "retention",
  "why": "No free binary provider with usable retention exists. The only genuinely free, posting-allowed server found (Eternal September) is text-only, explicitly 'no binaries', with 130-day retention",
  "retry_when": null,
  "first_recorded": "2026-10-21"
 }
}

Unknown or withheld values (15)

$.chaining not-recorded
$.confidence_note withheld
$.egress.terms not-recorded
$.extras.dead_end.retry_when process
$.free_tier.notes process
$.identity_cost.detail defaulted
$.identity_cost.kind identity-defaulted
$.interface interface-unknown
$.interface_detail withheld
$.limits_note process
$.per_object_cap.notes not-recorded
$.per_object_cap.stated not-recorded
$.retention.notes process
$.retention.stated not-recorded
$.tooling not-recorded