Re: Mac OS X Newsreaders: Opinions?

On Tue., 21 Feb 2006 13:10:23 -0800, H.B. Elkins wrote
(in article <dtfvjv01aks@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>):

On Mon, 20 Feb 2006 18:20:19 -0800, Donald L McDaniel wrote:

Why are Mac fanatics so intent on making fools of themselves?
They never can have an intelligent discussion about software, especially
when
Windows is mentioned.

For what it's worth, the first newsreader that I used extensively was Free
Agent, which I used with Windows NT and Windows 98. I had it stored on a Zip
disk so I could move it between a PC at work and a Mac running Virtual PC at
home.

When I left the PC environment I was still using Free Agent and VPC for a
newsreader. My Usenet provider allows http access, though, and I have been
using
that method for more than a year now.

I always liked Free Agent's interface for reading text, more-so than Thoth or

any
flavor of Newswatcher or MacSoup or Hogwasher (and I tried them all).

On the Mac, I use Thoth for downloading binaries. I have downloaded the trial

of
Unison but have not gotten completely comfortable with it.

I always felt one big advantage of Windows was the plethora of software
that's
available out there, when compared to the Mac. Of course the OS serves in
large
part to negate that advantage. However, I'm seeing a lot of good OS X
shareware
or free-ware that's available now that is closing the gap. On the PC I used
Cute
FTP and have found Cyberduck for OS X to be just as easy to use, if not
easier,
with the same features.

So there's at least one Mac user (nearly 20 years now) who can understand
where
you are coming from.

(To the OP: Thoth is great for downloading. It's not in production anymore
but
if you can get access to a decent Mac OS X Usenet client for one download, go
Vista one of the Mac binaries newsgroups and download Thoth. It's posted
there
frequently.)




Thank you, sir (or Madame) for a reasonable response to my posting.

I do agree that Thoth is a very good newsreader. Among the several OS X
news-readers it is probably one of the best and easiest to use. It is also a
good binary downloader.

However, I found Unison to be a much better binary downloader.
OS X, in fact seems to have an advantage over Windows for binary downloading.
I don't know why. It just appears that way to me.

However, for whatever reasons, OS X news-readers generally are not the best
for Usenet access. It is very hard (if possible at all -- I have yet to find
one) to find an OS X newsreader which will allow one to sort on two or more
columns at the same time, as an example. Yet this is the standard way of
sorting in almost all Windows clients. If you have never sorted this way,
you obviously wouldn't understand its usefulness. I have yet to find a
standard OS X newsreader which allows one to do this kind of sort. In
addition, I have yet to find an OS X newsreader which allows one to create a
true "Watched" status on a thread, and to sort according to this status,
while most Windows clients will allow this.

Among all Usenet news-readers, I personally found Forte Agent 3.0 to be heads
and shoulders above all other news-readers, PC or Mac.

I do realize that each OS will have its core of fanatical users, and these
fanatics will usually be the most vocal and aggressive in the various
newsgroups.

Currently, I am using Hogwasher 4.2.2. I am not happy with it, as I should
be. But it is better than most, so I use it.

I will certainly be happy when Darwine is released in a .dmg for OS X 10.4.5,
so that I can once again use Agent for my news-reading.

--

Donald L McDaniel
Please reply to the original thread,
so that the thread may remain intact
==========================================

.

Relevant Pages

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  • Re: I have a similiar problem
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