Agent support sucks

October 6, 2006 12:18 PM

I've used Forte Agent (paid) for about 10 years. However, they are now claiming they don't have a record of my most-recent upgrade and some of the tweaks they've made, I'm not cool with. Can anyone recommend a (preferably freeware) newsreader that has the following: Support for multiple servers (where it doesn't seperate each server like Thunderbird does), ease of use (remember, I'm familiar with Agent's interface), and tailored for offline (since I like to just read at leisure). I tried installing 40Tude's Dialog, but it will not run on my system for some reason.
posted by polexxia to Computers & Internet (14 answers total)

I've long used Grabit after dumping Forte years ago. I use it for binaries, not text ...
posted by geoff. at 12:26 PM on October 6, 2006

Response by poster: Yeah, I shoulda made clearer that I'm PRIMARILY a text user.
posted by polexxia at 12:36 PM on October 6, 2006

Before I upgrade (and to jump on your question) what are the problems you're seeing? (I was a bit disappointed with 3.xx, but it's bearable.)
posted by Leon at 12:36 PM on October 6, 2006

What do you mean by separate each server? I'm using two servers on Thunderbird, with all messages flowing into the same inbox.
posted by NortonDC at 12:51 PM on October 6, 2006

Response by poster: When I tried setting up Thunderbird, even though it would merge MAIL boxes, for NNTP, it only allowed me to set the servers up as seperate sets of folders--didn't poll to merge posts in a group. Am I missing a trick?
posted by polexxia at 1:04 PM on October 6, 2006

You might try Pan. I haven’t used the Windows version, and I don’t know how it treats multiple servers, but it has offline support and IIRC its interface was originally inspired by Agent.
posted by hilker at 1:10 PM on October 6, 2006

Whoops, my bad. Disregard because I missed that you're asking about news servers.

sorry!
posted by NortonDC at 1:13 PM on October 6, 2006

Pardon me if I'm being unnecessarily dense, but is there any reason you can't just use google groups if you're just using USENET for text?

I don't follow any newsgroups regularly, so I'm not sure if it lacks too many features to be a reasonable reader, but it seems like it'd be workable. Just throwing it out there, I guess.
posted by fishfucker at 6:30 PM on October 6, 2006

ps, there's also a google groups beta that may have more features (it just came out, I believe).
posted by fishfucker at 6:31 PM on October 6, 2006

Response by poster: Mainly 'cause Google Groups pretty well sucks as a reading interface :)
posted by polexxia at 6:37 PM on October 6, 2006

ah. and I did not catch the tailored for offline part. apologies.
posted by fishfucker at 6:43 PM on October 6, 2006

You could try Xnews, but it has the same problem of seperating news servers.
posted by nyxxxx at 8:32 PM on October 6, 2006

xananews?
posted by w.fugawe at 7:24 AM on October 7, 2006

Response by poster: Xananews looked ok, except for the way it handles multiple servers... Ugh. I suppose, I could go back to the last version o f Agent, but frankly, I just don't wanna USE Agent anymore.
posted by polexxia at 2:30 PM on October 7, 2006