On Fri, 22 Nov 2019 at 16:06, Kurt H Maier <khm@sciops.net> wrote:

> On Fri, Nov 22, 2019 at 03:49:58PM -0500, Henry Bent wrote:
> >
> > Has anyone definitely proven that any of the contents of these files are
> > not in the searchable Google Groups interface?  I don't really see any
> need
> > to duplicate their efforts.
>
> That data is essentially unavailable to people without Google accounts.
>

Why do you say that?  I used a browser that was fully logged out of Google
and in paranoid/private settings mode and I could browse newsgroups, do
basic searching, etc. eg:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/net.unix-wizards/iris%7Csort:date


> Even back when it was, the search had degraded to the point where you
> could paste explicit quotes from messages and those messages would not
> be in the results page.
>

I alluded to this sort of problem in my previous email, but in my recent
experience the search results have been satisfactory and I consider the
degraded search problem resolved.  I have been able to search for very
precise text strings with entirely satisfactory results over the last few
months.

-Henry