XS News Review 2026: Low-Cost Usenet with Blocks and Global Access

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XS News Quick Facts

What Makes XS News Different?

XS News sits between ultra-budget Usenet and more expensive premium services. Its annual subscriptions are inexpensive, but the service still includes a substantial retention window, strong advertised completion, encrypted NNTP access and servers on both sides of the Atlantic.

The biggest differentiator is flexibility. Users can choose a low-cost 50 Mbit/s plan, an unlimited-speed plan, a five-day pass or a block account with no expiration date. This makes XS News relevant both for everyday Usenet access and for advanced multi-provider configurations.

XS News does not bundle a proprietary newsreader or VPN as the main part of its offer. Instead, it is primarily an NNTP access service designed to work with the newsreader or downloader you already prefer.

XS News Pricing

XS News currently keeps its premium lineup simple. When billed annually, Basic 50 is advertised at €2.95 per month equivalent, while the Unlimited plan is advertised at €4.95 per month equivalent. Annual billing provides the strongest discount.

XS News Retention and Completion

XS News advertises 4,000+ days of binary retention and says the retention window continues to grow as storage capacity expands. That gives the service more than eleven years of potential article history.

The provider also advertises 99.8% completion. Completion measures how many requested Usenet articles are actually present and readable, rather than simply how old an article can be.

Retention and completion should be considered together. A long retention window is less useful if many article parts are missing, while excellent completion on a very short archive limits how far back you can search.

XS News Block Accounts

Block accounts are one of the strongest reasons to consider XS News. You pay once for a fixed amount of data and the remaining balance does not expire. All current XS News blocks use unlimited download speed, TLS encryption and support up to 200 simultaneous connections.

A non-expiring block can be configured as a secondary server in SABnzbd, NZBGet or another compatible downloader. The block is then used only when your primary Usenet provider cannot supply an article, allowing the balance to last much longer.

Europe and US Server Locations

XS News advertises Usenet server infrastructure in Europe and the United States. The company operates from the Amsterdam region and says its US infrastructure is used to provide North American users with a shorter route to Usenet articles.

This dual-region footprint can reduce latency and improve routing compared with connecting every user to a single European endpoint. It also gives users on both sides of the Atlantic a nearby NNTP entry point.

XS News advertises 100 Gbit/s backbone uplinks and up to 100 simultaneous connections on its Unlimited subscription. Block accounts support up to 200 connections.

Speed, Connections and TLS/SSL

The Basic 50 plan is intentionally capped at 50 Mbit/s. XS News describes this as a fixed plan limit rather than dynamic throttling: the speed is not reduced further based on usage volume or peak periods.

The Unlimited and block plans do not use a fixed Mbit/s speed cap. Unlimited supports up to 100 parallel connections, while block accounts support up to 200.

Secure NNTP access uses 256-bit TLS/SSL encryption, with port 563 documented as the standard encrypted connection. XS News includes encryption as part of the service rather than selling it as an add-on.

Privacy and Logging

XS News markets the service around European privacy and says it does not record what users download from Usenet. Its privacy documentation, however, deserves a precise reading.

XS News states that it logs certain website activity such as IP address, login time and visited URLs for account administration and abuse detection. The same privacy policy says that Usenet-related activity is not logged by XS News itself, but is handled by its processor Abavia, which provides hosting and access to the Usenet database.

For that reason, we would describe XS News as privacy-conscious rather than using an absolute "zero logs everywhere" label. TLS/SSL protects the connection in transit, but connection metadata and backend processing should still be considered separately from download-content logging.

DSA and DMCA Takedown Handling

XS News publishes its takedown procedure through backend provider Abavia. The policy covers the EU Digital Services Act (DSA) for European illegal-content notices and the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) for copyright claims.

This is an important distinction from providers that can be described simply as "DMCA" or "NTD". XS News / Abavia operates with both European DSA notice procedures and US DMCA procedures, depending on the applicable request.

Payment Methods

XS News supports a broad selection of European and international payment methods. Current checkout options include SEPA, major credit cards, PayPal, iDEAL / Wero, Apple Pay, Google Pay and several regional direct-payment or banking methods.

Depending on the payment method, users can choose recurring billing or a one-time prepaid purchase. XS News also lets customers manage, upgrade, pause or cancel subscriptions through the account area.

5-Day Unlimited Pass

Users who want to test the service without starting a recurring subscription can buy the 5Day Unlimited pass for €5. It provides five days of unlimited data, unlimited speed, up to 100 connections and TLS encryption.

The pass is a one-time prepaid purchase and does not automatically renew. This makes it useful for testing speed, completion and routing with your own newsreader before choosing a longer plan.

XS News Pros and Cons

Who Should Choose XS News?

XS News is particularly attractive for users who want affordable European Usenet access without giving up a substantial retention window, encrypted connections or US server availability.

The Unlimited plan is a strong fit for regular users who already have a preferred newsreader and NZB indexers. The block accounts are even more interesting for users who already have a primary provider and want a non-expiring backup account for occasional missing articles.

Users whose first priority is maximum historical retention may prefer one of the 6,500+ day full-retention providers. Users focused on price, flexibility and block-account value will find XS News much more competitive.