A news server is a USENET server, and USENET is on of the base components in the internet. You have the web, email, USENET. All of these are for exchanging information amongst it's users in different ways.

USENET is sort of a forum, much like Antionline, with lots of different topics (groups) which are all arranged in a hierarchy. The hierarchies moves from general to specific, and is defined using an address like this one: no.it.programming.c++. The no stands for Norway, it for information tech., programming and c++ explains itself. Of course in this group the topic of interest is c++ programming.

The USENET is the web's no 1 place for asking questions about a specific topic. There are groups for almost every topic, from programming to stamp collecting (although computer related stuff is the majority).

To access the USENET you would need a USENET server (news server) which is usually provided by the ISP. Sometimes the ISP does not provide a news server, and sometimes the news server is crap (my provider's is...). And you would need a news client, which in many occations would be your e-mail client (outlook express can read news). A few web pages provide both the client and the server, Google is one of those. Choose "groups" in the main page and the base of the USENET hierarchy is displayed.