Deja.com offers a quick and easy way to find something on a newsgroup, but regular participation in discussion threads requires strong tools. If you don't want to miss part of an important thread, you will need a program that tracks what you've read, downloads and saves new postings for offline reading, and helps you weed out unwanted chatter and spam (yes, like e-mail, newsgroup postings are cluttered with junk messages).

If you use Internet Explorer, you already have a decent newsreader installed on your system. In addition to its e-mail capabilities, Outlook Express lets you create multiple news server accounts. Forte's Free Agent (available from www.fortenic.com) increases your control over message downloading. Netscape's Messenger also incorporates a newsreader, though its interface is somewhat clunkier than those on Microsoft's and Forte's services.

In practice, I use both Forte's Agent and Microsoft's Outlook Express -- Agent for managing the newsgroups I follow closely, and Outlook Express for those I browse only occasionally. To activate your newsreader, all you need is a news server address and permission to use it. Most ISPs provide such addresses -- just call and ask what yours is. If your service doesn't provide you with one of these or if performance is lacklustre, you can pay for access from Deja.com or RemarQ (see above). Or try your luck with a free news server such as news.clara.net.