what kind of newsgroup - program do you use?

necromancer · Joined: 20 Oct 2003 Posts: 5

im using forte agent 1.9

im not that happy with this program.. any suggestions for a better program? maybe more user-friendly with a better overview for the content?

and by the way: im always have many unfinished or broken files on the news server. i think this depends on the server mhm? any idea?

necromancer

LeonMcNichol · Joined: 12 Sep 2002 Posts: 38

I personally use Power-Grab. It's freeware. I rather like it. Of course, you can only decode binary and can't post replies. But just for leeching, this works. Very Happy

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necromancer · Joined: 20 Oct 2003 Posts: 5

thank you very much.. ill try this one ...
Smile

necromancer

Chung · Joined: 04 Mar 2002 Posts: 79 Location: North Carolina, USA

I'll have to try power-grab... I couldn't tell from the website, does it do multi-server? gotta have my multiserver :P

I use newsbin right now.. an older version since they *cough* changed the registration scheme in newer version I think *cough*cough* It's not perfect.. but it does do multi-server pretty seamlessly.. missing a few multiparts if a post? grab what it can from local server, grab the missing ones from other server and download it like it was nothing else.. the whole renaming thing it does with the first character gets on my nerves sometimes though.. and the fact that it unloads and loads the header cache from memory is annoying.. as it'll have to reload it if you've left it open for a while and go back to search the list.. but otherwise, it's ok :P

LeonMcNichol · Joined: 12 Sep 2002 Posts: 38

Actually, I don't think it does, but I'm not sure. Since I just download from verizon's news server.

superjaded · Joined: 08 Jan 2003 Posts: 24

On my Linux machine I use a combination of PAN for browsing and posting text messages, nget for leeching and newspost for posting binaries.

For what little usenet browsing/leeching I do in windows, I use Xnews. Normally when I do the leeching when I'm infront of my windows box I'll open a ssh session ot my linux box and run nget from there, rather than using xnews to leech. Same deal with posting, I'll open a ssh and do the posting from there via newspost.

Gorunova · Posted: Sat Oct 25, 2003 8:35 pm Post subject:

I used to use tin in Linux and Free Agent on Windows, but for the last three years I've been using XNews on Windows for everything. I really like it.

I'm planning to switch to a batched grabber of some sort on Linux one of these days. Haven't got around to it yet though.

(inc) · Joined: 18 Feb 2002 Posts: 356 Location: San Diego

Me? Currently Agent for general stuff, Newsbin for grabbing binaries across multiple servers & groups simultaneously, and PP2K variants for binary posts.

As for Agent vs. X-news -- I know both pretty well, but I seldom enter into that debate as it's pretty much gone into that PC/MAC status of almost being useless. I usually tell people to try both and see what fits them best. IMHO, both programs have some real flaws -- it just depends which of these flaws offend you the least. But also, Agent is now a moving target -- version 2 has entered internal testing, and it will be significantly different from the original.

(inc)

deoch · Joined: 09 Mar 2002 Posts: 65

I use grabit.. Easy to use and supports more than one thread/server.
http://www.shemes.com/grabit

For posting I use PP2k.. But that's pretty rare since I have an upload cap.

Melchior · Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2003 8:34 pm Post subject:

I use Agent to see what's been posted since the last time I checked the newsgroups, and to do general messaging.

For binary downloading, I use News Shark (wmhsoft.com).

However, I long for multiserver functionality, and am looking forward to when Agent 2.0 is released either for public beta, or when it is actually released-- I have high hopes for it.

Chung · Joined: 04 Mar 2002 Posts: 79 Location: North Carolina, USA

Having those new features in Agent2 would be nice.. I've never been excited about a do-it-all program though (ie. Outlook ..BLEH). Hopefilly, one thing they do change is the way the store binaries... do a direct-to-disk method instead of into a db-dump of sorts and then you save it OUT of the db... Agent's method is horrid.. If they can bring that in, Agent just might be viable for a one-program solution again. I still remember long ago trying to do it all with agent.. header tracking and binary downloads.. heh, I'd have to do 2 or 3 downloads a day sometimes when it hit the 2GB limit in it's db.

LaughnCynic · Joined: 16 Jul 2002 Posts: 105

I use Xnews in windows for both reading/posting messages and for dl'n binaries. It's been my mainstay and I know it's foibles and am comfortable with it. It can handle mutiple servers but doesn't have the power user features like combining multiple groups/servers into virtual groups/servers. I think it's a pretty good choice for new users since it's relatively easy to figure out. I can't comment or compare it to Agent since I've never given any version of Agent a try.

I have tried Newsbin Pro (a long time ago when I started following the anime groups) and it was nice for grabbing bins. I also gave NewsPro a try for a little bit when I was still on cable. A bit complicated on the settup side but it had some nice features for the power binary grabber.

For posting (back when I had the bandwidth to post... just filling a few requests) I stuck with a yEnc version of PP2K.

I've been away from linux for a couple years now (I miss it). I never really did any binary grabbing back then but I used to use slrn a bit for reading as well as trying out the earlier versions of PAN and playing with GNUS (emacs).

SD M · Joined: 17 Nov 2003 Posts: 13

xo · Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2003 10:40 pm Post subject:

xo · Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2003 6:30 pm Post subject:

Just to follow up on nget's new "autopar" feature: it appears that it's able to identify files that are par files and only download enough needed to complete the archive set. So it saves on time, bandwidth, and disk space.

Another new behavior is that it appears to download and decode incompletes if par2 files are available to attempt recovery. Sweet! This was the hardest part about the switch to par2, I didn't want to get incompletes for *all* files, just the ones that had par2s available and just enough to let me fix it. Check it out: