News Groups Reader(Binary Groups)

[Zenzefiloan]

Hello guys,

I am coming from the pc world and i got used to MACOSX within a week. Now i am at the position were my pc is gone and i am only using MACs. The only application at the momment that is missing is a good lean newsgroup reader.

I am involved a lot with binary newsgroups and i used to use NewsRover on the pc but on the mac i cannot find anything similar.

I tried using thot but it keeps on crashing on my PB Ti.

Any other recomendations. Please keep in mind that i use newsgroups mainly for binaries. (

 

[Michael Carney]

MT-Newswatcher is perhaps the nicest newsreader in the world, and it's free .

http://www.smfr.org/mtnw/

Here's what MacOrchard has to say.

MT-NewsWatcher is a multi-threaded version of NewsWatcher (hence the name) that brings a new level of usability to the NewsWatcher series. Multithreading has almost become a necessity in these days of Usenet overload, and the version 3.x series further enhances MT-NW's implementation, with an intuitive interface and smooth operation that will get you reading news faster than just about any other newsreader.

ENJOY!

 

[scruffy]

Halime is also a nice one. Its interface is a bit clunky, but it has nice features for binary newsgroups, like selecting a whole group of messages for binary extraction, etc.

www.imdat.de/halime

 

[marmotton]

I use Thoth. It works well for binaries. I have found it to be a bit buggy.
See: http://www.thothsw.com/

I have seen today an announcement for a Newsreader I had NEVER heard about before: News Hunter. I have no experience with it.

See http://www.parkersoftware.com/

You may want to check them out

 

[edX]

finally, the best binary newsreader is available in beta for X- Hogwasher. find it at www.asar.com . a bit pricey, but you get what you pay for. also, if this is like the original, expect to get to use several betas for free before you are forced to pay. by then you should be hooked

 

[GrBear]

Originally posted by Zenzefiloan
Any other recomendations. Please keep in mind that i use newsgroups mainly for binaries. (

I dunno - I still use Agent under Virtual PC (the only reason I still use VPC) because I haven't found an acceptible replacement out of all the titles suggested in this thread.. and I still send off email to Forte once or twice a year asking for a Mac version.

 

[themacko]

Okay this is off-topic, but I'm intrigued (sp?). What is a news group and what is a binary? I've never heard of these things before ... is there a link to a list of news groups to sign up to or something?

 

[edX]

Scott - ever heard of 'Usenet'? this is another aspect of the net completely seperate from the www and html format. There are discussion groups and and 'binary' groups. most binaries are pictures or videos. but some news groups are set up for software distribution as well i believe. there are well over 30,000 such groups. some are very active and some are pretty dead. Often the discussion groups are like a forum only with no subdivisions. yet another alternative for many people.

usenet can only be accessed thru a 'newsreader'. you would need your isp's usenet server address to configure one. one great thing about some of the readers is that you can set them to download and then come back and look at everything later when you have time.

 

[GrBear]

Originally posted by themacko
Okay this is off-topic, but I'm intrigued (sp?). What is a news group and what is a binary? I've never heard of these things before ... is there a link to a list of news groups to sign up to or something?

Newsgroups are part of Usenet (another part of the Internet like the web, email, IRC, etc.).. it's kinda like this message forum, but instead has around 85,000 separate groups catering to every imaginable interest. Usenet has been around for much longer than the web, and requires a separate program to connect to a news server. Your internet provider usually runs a news server which mirrors most available news groups. Unlike this forum, messages on Usenet tend to only be retained for a few weeks at most, so it becomes more of a conversation medium than an archive of information like the web.

If your beginner, I recommend using something like Mozilla to 'surf' newsgroups once you have the servier information from your internet provider. While mozilla doesn't handle large binary attachments on some messages, it works fine for browsing various groups.

 

[GrBear]

Alternatively, if you just want to read groups (except binary groups) and still be able to post the occasional message, you can also use Google as well. It will give you a quick and dirty idea of what's out there. Not to mention that Google has an archive of messages going back MANY years.