The joy of Usenet is that unless you join a binary group, it's just words. No fonts, no HTML, no graphics, just text. Mozilla Thunderbird is an outstanding (and FREE) newsreader. I've been using it since I converted to Firefox and like it so much more than the Microsoft newsreaders.
Contact your ISP to get the address of your news server if you'd like to try that option instead of Google. Most ISPs--but not all--offer Usenet access at no additional charge. I'm not a fan of the Google version as it's web based, but it's a good backup if your ISP Usenet server is down. There's also supernews (
www.supernews.com), but I think that's a subscription vehicle.
As Dee said, there's a newsgroup for just about everything, and we mean
everything. I've currently got 14 subscribed newsgroups, but that will go down after the AI and Survivor seasons end. I've been known to post to alt.sports.college.sec.kentucky, alt.tv.alias, & alt.gossip.celebrities once in a while. I've also been known to post and actually write the FAQ for alt.music.cheap-trick, not that it's been updated in a couple of years.