On Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:58:08 GMT, "Gil Faver" wrote:

Abandon googlegroups, subscribe to a real news provider which actually
cares about the service they provide, and get a real news reading
client with filtering capabilities; you'll be much happier.

Good advice.

can you offer a couple sugestions along these lines? Are any of these free?

The newsreader (Thunderbird) included in the Firefox browser is s good choice.
If you're a techie type, Gravity or xnews are good choices. I've used Agent (or
FreeAgent) for many years.

And the server at news.motzarella.org is free, if your ISP doesn't offer a news
server (most ISPs do).

HTH -- Larry