OT: Need newsreader suggestion for non computer expert

spaco wrote in news:Y-- dnTGv886QSgjQnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@bright.net:

I use Xnews. It's free, and works quite well in XP. Not sure about Windows 7.

Doug White

MS supplies a newsgroup reader as a component of Windows Live for Win 7. It's a free download and shouldn't be hard to find.

Mike

It requires a free GMAIL account which I use as my spam trap. It doesn't need any extra software or settings on your computer, though it starts better if I don't delete its cookie.

jsw

I'm only using Outlook because my employer now requires it. It's awful in several ways.

I'd skip Outlook and just use Thunderbird for both email and NGs.

I loved XP, too, but 7 is OK.

Checkin' it out, Boss. Oooh! Me like!

I wouldn't wish that on anyone, 'cept all the trolls here. It's worse than the old 300 baud BBS curse "Beat me, whip me, make me read my mail online."

-- The secret of happiness is to make others believe they are the cause of it. -- Al Batt

I've used Agent for years, spam filters are good, once you understand them, and setup is fairly easy. It can handle several different news services at once. You just need the address, userid and password for each. The site has several FAQs that can help with setup. Can be as complex or simple as you want. Also does email and sorts the stuff into as many folders as you'd like.

Caveat, I have not used it yet on Win 7, the one box I have that runs it is still under construction and isn't going to be used for that anyway. Biggest problem with Win 7 is that it tries to be too helpful and you can't do some things at all. Default setup runs like a slug, too. A disk hog, mine takes 10 gigs. Somewhere out there, there's a "skin" you can get to make it behave like XP. Haven't gotten that yet, it's on the list, though. Turning UAC off is a good start, though. Also having troubles installing new hardware, took over a month to get the thing to the point where my tuner card will record. Driver problems abound, even after all these years and a service pack. And still having troubles with the local network seeing it. Probably the default firewall that gets installed whether you like it or not. Ditto on the anti-virus.

Stan

Do you consume food or beverages made from only artificial ingredients?

Anyone notice that my horrible Google Groups service is the one that finds the answers?

jsw

Really? What's the MID for the article that you found that in?

Idiot.

I'm a happy Free Agent/Agent user since v0.93. Have you figured out how to kill all responses to a certain post or poster without killing all repliers? I'd like to never again see a post by Cliffy/TMT/Curly but haven't figured out how to filter that without using a text filter, which Mark Prince says has been in the works for a decade now. Yes, I realize that it would slow down the program during use, but it's a necessary evil if they won't let us use other headers.

It works just fine on 7. I'm using v6.

The new box came with XP but had a freebie to upgrade to Win 7 Pro which includes the program.

I got a token response from Microtek, downloaded the new driver and installed it, but I still can't get 7 to recognize my scanner. $#%&^*(

My most computer-savvy friend suggested that I use Microsoft Security Essentials for AV, and it works well.

-- The secret of happiness is to make others believe they are the cause of it. -- Al Batt

Agent runs on Win 7 (or so I have been told, I run it under Crossover on Linux...) Win 7 like Vista differs slightly from XP and all the previous versions in that Agent needs its .data files outside of Windows program files so Agent can control them. So other than where it is installed, Agent runs the same on Win 7 as it did back on 3.1.

Ick, no! If everyone paid more attention to what they eat, they'd see the myriad food allergy symptoms and be able to remove them from their diet until the allergy went away. I thought I had patellar tendonitis until I gave up popcorn. Corn was causing it. Various nightshade family plants (tomatoes, potatoes, chilis, peppers, eggplant) give me various arthritic maladies. Sugar makes me ache. When I can avoid all those and I feel like a different person.

But none of this has anything to do with how godawful GGs are. ;) (lousy interface, delays, editing/truncation, etc.)

-- The secret of happiness is to make others believe they are the cause of it. -- Al Batt

Whoda thunk you'd find that kind of info on the Microsoft website?

-- The secret of happiness is to make others believe they are the cause of it. -- Al Batt

The mistakes in my posts are missed leftovers from numerous rewrites, not the interface which is like Wordpad. GG runs in a browser tab. I do miss being able to filter out the trolls, spammers and hatemongers.

jsw

Here is "Classic Shell" for Win7: Homepage:

I run Forte Agent on Windows 7. Unfortunately you cannot get it free anymore. I have tried several programs to replace Windows Live Mail as a newsreader (at which it sucks, it's OK as a mail program) and thought it worth spending the money on the Agent.

I have also WinVN as a back-up. It does some jobs that the others would not do but I would not use it as the main program.

Michael Koblic, Campbell River, BC

I second that. At some point in the installation process it'll ask you if you want Thunderbird to be your default mail program -- say no if you just want to use it for newsgroups, and proceed.

You do still have to point it at your news server, but someone here (me, if no one else) can help you with that.

if you look at the MS Outlook 2007 helpfiles, there is a way to attach your own newsreader to Outlook and when you invoke that method it adds a "news" button to outlook. I have Thunderbird attached and it works just fine, doesn't mess up anything.

I think you will grow to like windows 7, I'm not so sure about the rearrangement of the menus on the MS 0ffice products though, that is not helpful at all