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# Usenet
Usenet (User's Network) is an ancient digital discussion network -- a [forum](forum.md) -- that existed long before the [World Wide Web](www.md). At the time it was very popular, it was THE place to be, but nowadays it's been forgotten by the mainstream, sadly hardly anyone remembers it.
Usenet (User's Network) is an [ancient](ancient.md) [digital](digital.md) discussion network -- a [forum](forum.md) of sort -- that existed long before the [World Wide Web](www.md). At the time it was very popular, it was THE place to be, but nowadays it's been forgotten by the [mainstream](mainstream.md), sadly hardly anyone besides the oldfags remembers it.
Back in the day there were no [web browsers](browser.md), there was no web. Many users were also **not connected through Internet** as it was expensive, they normally used other networks like [UUCP](uucp.md) working through phone lines. They could communicate by some forms of electronic mail or by directly connecting to servers and leaving messages for others there -- these servers were called [BBS](bbs.md)es and were another popular kind of "[social network](social_network.md)" at the time. Usenet was a bit different as it was [decentralized](decentralization.md) (see also [federation](federation.md)) -- it wasn't stored or managed on a single [server](server.md), but on many independent servers that provided users with access to the network. This access was (and is) mostly paid (to [lurk](lurk.md) for free you can search for Usenet archives online). To access Usenet a **newsreader** program was needed, it was kind of a precursor to web browsers (nowadays newsreaders are sometimes built into e.g. email clients). Usenet was lots of time not moderated and anonymous, i.e. kind of free, you could find all kinds of illegal material there.