The title is hyperbole. Rather that being impossible to search at all, the problem is that "the 'before:YYYY/MM/DD' and 'after:YYYY/MM/DD' terms have stopped working, and it also appears to no longer be possible to search by date."
That said, Google's web interface to Usenet has always been garbage compared to the standalone news readers of even 20 years ago. I've long wondered when the day would come that Google stopped seeing it worth their bother to maintain their Usenet archive. Hopefully when that day comes they'll donate it to a more capable institution.
That said, Google's web interface to Usenet has always been garbage compared to the standalone news readers of even 20 years ago. I've long wondered when the day would come that Google stopped seeing it worth their bother to maintain their Usenet archive. Hopefully when that day comes they'll donate it to a more capable institution.