I'm guessing that most of you good people are NOT seeing the dozens of recent (last 10 days or so) postings under names like Rayna Himenez, Florencia Enke, Tonje McKnight, etc. that have been recurrently infesting Alt-Obits? (If you WERE seeing them, I imagine you'd all be discussing it among yourselves, right?)

As I understand it (and I indeed may NOT understand all this in the least!) I'm seeing these things cluttering up my roster of notifications (and ensuing threads) of important newly-dead notables like diplomat Kissinger, Justice O'Connor and all the others--simply because I am using some primitive e-tech software (known, I gather, as the Google Groups "browser") which doesn't automatically filter them out.

That IS what is happening, at least on MY computer, right? I see 'em 'cause I've got Stone Age software, but YOU don't because years ago you upgraded to somethin' WAY better, RIGHT?

That is, it's a "simple" (but NOT to me) problem, as I'm simply using a bad "browser". (By the way, I don't even KNOW that my particular "browser" indeed IS that dreaded Google Groups one; I'm taking YOUR word for it. Nowhere on my screen do I ever see ANYTHING that says "You're using Google Groups" to access your newsgroup. If I was the engineering jerk who created that "browser", I'd have put that up-front on it, just to make clear to dummies like myself who don't have a grasp on these things.

No, I don't fire up my "browser" from my "desktop" and use it to access Usenet groups. Rather, all I EVER do is search "alt.obituaries" on a search engine--usually Google's, for sure, but sometimes Bing, and years ago, sometimes OTHER search engines--then click on it, and the latest Alt-Obits entry shows up at the top of that new site that the search engine found for me.

By the way, a PC-only pal (and thus he can NEVER solve my Apple problems, and is a continent distant anyway) tells me all the OTHER search engines besides (1) Google (2) Bing and (3) DuckDuckGo are now DEAD. (Until he told me that, I assumed there were DOZENS if not HUNDREDS of search engines out there, just as there are millions of websites, if not quite yet billions.) That was a SHOCK to me, and still is. (I mean, why isn't the spirit of competition generating ALL KINDS of specific-for-a-given-discipline search engines?

Anyway, so since to YOU FOLKS the finding/selecting/installing/running process for a top-notch "browser" is no big deal for you to set up on your computer (or even smart phone? as smart phones need "browsers" too, right?), I gather that this dilemma is almost unique to little ol' e-untrained me! That is, FEW of y'all are plagued by this, which is why some of you kind folks have told me to just simply "get a good browser".

NEVER MIND that no one has explained why Google-owned [or purchased-by-the-conglomerate-years-after-its-original-establishment-online is a better description] Usenet Groups shouldn't use the Google Groups browser! (That is, Alt-Obits along with a gazillion other groups, none of which I read, much less post on) doesn't work well with the "Google browser"! I mean, why wouldn't Google engineer their usenet "browser" to work IDEALLY with the Usenet sector of the Internet which they bought lock-stock-and-barrel ?!?

(The reason I keep putting browers in quotes is that after DECADES, I STILL don't know a precise definition for a browser! Yeah, I know it's a specific type of software (and thus a program), but so is a bot, or a ".jpg" photo, right? And so is a word-processor, right? And so is any pop-up advertisement, right?

So what is the DEFINITION of a "browser"? That is, what specifically do EVERY browser (the good, the bad and the in-between) have in COMMON, andONLY what each such software package has in common.

(That's just simple definitional procedure, most famously working with words, obviously. But it also applies to EVERYTHING...and yet every time I've asked a software engineer for a DEFINITION of a "browser", they tell me what it can DO rather than specifically telling me what every "browser" has in common and what thusly and ONLY defines them.

You may learn differently, but I learn by establishing a DEFINITION of something, ANYthing in my mind, and then building on that from that point on. That's OF COURSE how mathematics works...and I would argue that's how ALL learning works, simple concepts, complex ones and everything in between.

Anyway, I've been trying to get someone to define "browser" for me--again, what all browsers DO have in common, and JUST AS IMPORTANT, what browsers CAN'T do. But everyone I've posed this to--and I've been doing since circa 1994 when I first heard the word--they insist they're simple to use and focus on THAT, and never get around to DEFINING "browser".

(Same thing, by the way, with "troll". Yeah, yeah, I understand an internet "troll" is someone online up to no good--but there's MANY ways that nasty people can cause screen trouble or just confusion to us other users, or at least to easily e-confused users like me...but there doesn't seem to be ANY commonality to the MANY types of negativity they can and do cause; that is, everyone seems to use the word "troll" differently!)

Anyway, some of you seemed to instruct me to pursue this route: if I could only figure out how to (1) select some third-decade-of-the-21st-Century "browser" somewhere on some online battery of "browsers" somewhere offering the good, bad and in-between; then (2) figure out which is the best for my e-situation or at least a "good" one for my particular Apple computer (of which I THINK there are at least a DOZEN models/operating-systems/etc. I could have ended up with instead of my 27-inch "Retina" one, right?) AND THEN (3) somehow managing to successfully install it (withOUT somehow inadvertently corrupting my Apple Mac's recently-upgraded latest-and-greatest Apple operating system*), THEN I'd FINALLY be forever secure from receiving all these bombarding spam Alt-Obits postings, RIGHT?

Well, while many folks reading this are surely laughing yourselves silly at how this Styble idiot can't even use (much less master) even SIMPLE software and hardware protocols (and thus proving to everyone that he's as dim-witted as all those Styble-authored pointless mini-essays suggest to readers he is), maybe someone less contemptuous of me out there can answer this:

I've read over the years how so many of you have disdainfully bypassed ever again even READING my own angering-to-some postings by merely subjecting my annoying e-essays to a so-called "killfile" (or "kill-file"). (Which of course explains why those Styble-haters no longer e-hector me--nowadays they don't see my prose in the FIRST place.)

SO: might doing this "kill-file" thing a simpler solution to this ongoing spam bombardment, than the find-a-better-browser-and-somehow-get-it-working-on-my machine approach?

And would that ONLY kill the spam, or might it not ALSO "kill" important obit dispatches from all you good posters? (I mean, I'd hate to miss learning of ANY major passing (or interesting "minor" one, which Alt-Obits is FANTASTIC for, as you all know) simply because I "kill-filed" them into invisibility.

Thanks in advance to EVERYONE who can clarify ANY of this to the eternally e-perplexed little ol' me.

BRYAN STYBLE/Florida
==================* That operating system upgrade was accomplished by a VERY charitable fellow, but ONLY after spending about 5 or 6 hours on the project one Saturday. And that guy is the ONLY person I know who could have done it, and he's a VERY busy family man who shouldn't be wasting his Saturdays over at my condo. As you might imagine, I couldn't have done it myself (even if carefully instructed how to) any more than I could have designed and built Hoover Dam by myself. And that guy seems to like me (otherwise he wouldn't have spent 5 or 6 minutes of his life doing so, much less all those hours). Point being, I can't "go to the well again" to impose upon him AGAIN to install that non-Google Groups "browser" which some of you nice people have told me will instantly correct this spam situation.

I tried to access alt obits on my company smartphone today and I only got a page that said google alt obituaries - join groups. I clicked to join but nothing happened. My laptop brought me to the right place but alas, the spam was near impenetrable.

I have been visiting alt obits since about 1998 or so on browsers and have never seen a bombardment like this.

On Saturday, December 2, 2023 at 2:50:40 PM UTC-6, radioacti...@gmail.com wrote:
> I'm guessing that most of you good people are NOT seeing the dozens of recent (last 10 days or so) postings under names like Rayna Himenez, Florencia Enke, Tonje McKnight, etc. that have been recurrently infesting Alt-Obits?

Hey, Bryan. I'm getting them, too, but it's not a big deal to me. They have been in batches lately. I simply look at the content and read what ISN'T by the bombers and hit "Mark All Read" at the top of the screen. I feel a bit of kinship with you since we are both children of 1954. I also feel that many of the solutions that our younger members have explained are beyond my grasp. I'm just tellin' you what works for me.
-MJ

Tommie Hicks <tommie.hicks303@gmail.com> wrote:

>I tried to access alt obits on my company smartphone today and I only
>got a page that said google alt obituaries - join groups. I clicked to
>join but nothing happened. My laptop brought me to the right place but
>alas, the spam was near impenetrable.

>I have been visiting alt obits since about 1998 or so on browsers and
>have never seen a bombardment like this.

Use a genuine newsreader, not your browser. Become a subscriber on
news.eternal-september.org or another News server that processes NoCeMs
as a spam countermeasure. The spam is originating at Google Groups.

Just stop using Google Groups.

On 12/2/2023 6:16 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
> Tommie Hicks <tommie.hicks303@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I tried to access alt obits on my company smartphone today and I only
>> got a page that said google alt obituaries - join groups. I clicked to
>> join but nothing happened. My laptop brought me to the right place but
>> alas, the spam was near impenetrable.
>
>> I have been visiting alt obits since about 1998 or so on browsers and
>> have never seen a bombardment like this.
>
> Use a genuine newsreader, not your browser. Become a subscriber on
> news.eternal-september.org or another News server that processes NoCeMs
> as a spam countermeasure. The spam is originating at Google Groups.
>
> Just stop using Google Groups.

The problem is that eternal-september.org is dropping lots of legitimate
news articles along with the spam. So to read all of the posts it's
still necessary to go to Google Groups.

- seb

Steve Bacher <sebmb1@verizon.net> wrote:
>On 12/2/2023 6:16 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
>>Tommie Hicks <tommie.hicks303@gmail.com> wrote:

>>>I tried to access alt obits on my company smartphone today and I only
>>>got a page that said google alt obituaries - join groups. I clicked to
>>>join but nothing happened. My laptop brought me to the right place but
>>>alas, the spam was near impenetrable.

>>>I have been visiting alt obits since about 1998 or so on browsers and
>>>have never seen a bombardment like this.

>>Use a genuine newsreader, not your browser. Become a subscriber on
>>news.eternal-september.org or another News server that processes NoCeMs
>>as a spam countermeasure. The spam is originating at Google Groups.

>>Just stop using Google Groups.

>The problem is that eternal-september.org is dropping lots of legitimate
>news articles along with the spam. So to read all of the posts it's
>still necessary to go to Google Groups.

Dropping lots of legitimate news articles? Bullshit.

Compared to the massive amount of spam being countered, the false
positives are not "lots" but a mere handful.

I've been bringing them to Ray's attention as I've noticed them. He
pointed out the rule some of them violated in SpamAssasin, which is
a good rule, like not having multiple email addresses on From. There is
no valid reason for any LEGITIMATE user to be posting like that. Much
of this is misconfiguration on the user's part, not Google Groups
turning properly-configured settings into cruft.

Steve Bacher <sebmb1@verizon.net> wrote:
> On 12/2/2023 6:16 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
>> Tommie Hicks <tommie.hicks303@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I tried to access alt obits on my company smartphone today and I only
>>> got a page that said google alt obituaries - join groups. I clicked to
>>> join but nothing happened. My laptop brought me to the right place but
>>> alas, the spam was near impenetrable.
>>
>>> I have been visiting alt obits since about 1998 or so on browsers and
>>> have never seen a bombardment like this.
>>
>> Use a genuine newsreader, not your browser. Become a subscriber on
>> news.eternal-september.org or another News server that processes NoCeMs
>> as a spam countermeasure. The spam is originating at Google Groups.
>>
>> Just stop using Google Groups.
>
> The problem is that eternal-september.org is dropping lots of legitimate
> news articles along with the spam. So to read all of the posts it's
> still necessary to go to Google Groups.
>
> - seb

On the late Amelia's recommendation,I use Panix for news now,having
long been aware of them through fandom links;
they don't have everything there is but you can compare the offerings
to eternal-september...I generally don't log into the Panix shell
account except for backup email but because I have it,I can point
newsreaders to it from my own computer with my own address with
the same account name.

-=-=-
The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.