Usenet itself is a set of machines that exchanges messages, or articles, from Usenet discussion forums, called newsgroups. There are tens of thousands of Usenet newsgroups in existence. The Usenet news feed can be read by a variety of newsreader software programs. Newsreader software gives you access to the newsgroup messages that are stored on a central computer at the University. For example, the Netscape Communicator suite comes with a newsreader program called Messenger.
Newsreaders are also available as standalone products.
A great variety of topics are covered by list servers. When you subscribe to a list server, messages from other subscribers are automatically sent to your electronic mailbox. You subscribe to a list server by sending an e-mail message to a computer program called a Listserv. List servers are located on computer networks throughout the world. This program handles subscription information and distributes messages to and from subscribers.