No it is not. online access to news.mozilla.org is via GG.

Thunderbird is not your best choice as a newsreader. Unless your also using it for mail, dedicated news reader software will offer a better experience.

Just an FYI. Any newfroup program that installs on your computer will need to download a list of newsgroups, all 60 thousand or more of them (there are over 100,000 but few server carry them all. Giganews is one of the more complete listings. They also offer all sorts of security and online storage. http://www.giganews.com/mimo/

As for free newgroup access, using a web interface your basically limited to Google. (They bought alta vistas USENET archive, and are the only ones to offer search) As you are being advised the google groups interface makes a hash of usenet postings (it is designed for google groups) and your are quite likely to upset people using it.

Some ISPs still offer USENET servers ( check with your ISP), otherwise you can not use USENET without a paid account with a USENET provider such as Giganews. I really know little of Gignews, only that they are basically the market leader and have been around for years.

Thanks for responding

'No it is not. online access to news.mozilla.org is via GG.'

Does 'GG' mean Google groups?

Yes. I used your abbreviation as I thought you would understand it.

Access to news.mozilla.org is via a newsreader. This can be Thunderbird or any other newsreader of your choice.

You'd have to download the list of groups, and will then be able to subscribe to the newsgroup(s) you're interested in.

You can limit the number of posts being downloaded, so no worries.

Using a newsreader is very much preferred over accessing the Mozilla support groups via GG.

Thanks for replying.

I have Windows Mail that can also be used for NG

Do I need any other information other than news.mozilla.org to connect?

How do you rate this server?

How can I limit the NG's downloaded.

Best wishes.

I don't think you need anything else. news.mozilla.org is not Usenet, it only carries the Mozilla support groups, so the no. of groups is limited. Not sure what your concern is with the no. of groups anyway. Thunderbird is perfectly ok for this purpose.

it is an excellent server for the few Mozilla. hierarchy groups it carries. It is not a general group server only carrying mozilla groups.

I really do not know what is being discussed here anymore. The questions was about using Newsgroups without downloading anything. That limits you to basically Google Groups.

What news server you use for non Google groups is dependent on what is offered by your ISP. Some still offer the access free, others do not.