Your Internet Consultant - The FAQs of Life Online

5.7. Where can I find a list of all the Usenet newsgroups?

If your system carries Usenet, you might have a file called /usr/lib/news/newsgroups, which contains just the information you seek. Try typing more /usr/lib/news/newsgroups to view it.

If you don't have that file, you should know that a list of active newsgroups, many including descriptions, is available via FTP from ftp.uu.net:/networking/news/config/newsgroups.Z. (You'll need to uncompress this file with the UNIX uncompress command before reading it.) It is also posted occasionally to the Usenet newsgroup news.lists.

The list looks something like this, only much longer:

alt.1d                  One-dimensional imaging, & the thinking
behind it.
alt.2600                The magazine or the game system.  You decide.
alt.3d                  Three-dimensional imaging.
alt.abortion.inequity   Paternal obligations of failing to abort unwanted
child.
alt.abuse.recovery      Helping victims of abuse to recover.
alt.activism            Activities for activists.
alt.activism.d          A place to discuss issues in alt.activism.
alt.activism.death-penalty      For people opposed to capital punishment.
alt.adoption            For those involved with or contemplating
adoption.
alt.aeffle.und.pferdle  German cartoon characters das Aeffle und das
Pferdle.
alt.agriculture.misc    All about cultivating the soil and raising
animals.
alt.aldus.pagemaker     Don't use expensive user support, come here
instead.
alt.alien.visitors      Space Aliens on Earth!  Abduction!  Gov't
Coverup!
alt.amateur-comp        Discussion and input for Amateur Computerist
Newsletter.
alt.amazon-women.admirers       Worshiping women you have to look up to.
alt.amiga.demos         Amiga demonstration programs.
alt.amiga.slip          ???
alt.angst               Anxiety in the modern world.
alt.animals.lampreys    They're eel-like, and they suck.

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