Usenet clients
From MacFAQ
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[edit] MacSOUP
Stefan Haller, shareware $20, http://home.snafu.de/stk/macsoup/
MacSOUP is extremely well-regarded, and is probably the best offline newsreader available for the Mac. It's also a basic but functional email client. It works on any Mac from a Plus upwards, and will run happily in 2.5MB of RAM. MacSOUP offers a number of features which make news-reading easier, amongst them a graphical representation of the thread, and the ability to download only news headers (rather than the full content of each article) and then to select some - either manually or automatically based upon your own criteria - for a full download.
MacSOUP pretty much never, ever, crashes or goes wrong. It is also an extremely well-behaved program in other ways, and conforms strictly to Internet RFCs. Its author has included his own email address in the program's address-book, and responds promptly to queries and other correspondence.
MacSOUP's interface and behaviour is unusual in some ways, and some find it intolerably strange to use.
The application has several limitations. It is not suited to multiple users, and its handling of binaries is basic, to say the least. Though developments are promised for future versions, progress is steady but slow.
[edit] tin
tin, http://www.tin.org/
The advent of Mac OSX, one of the most modern operating systems in the world, has enabled certain people to take a step backwards. Less is more, except on Linux, where it isn't even a symlink. The text-based newsreader tin is ideal for those who want to fully experience the retro UNIX world. It runs in the terminal, is simple to use, yet is very powerful. The main reasons I use it are that I can run it on my work Mac, to which I can ssh from home, and it supports a sigmonster. Although my favourite news reader ever, MT-Newswatcher (http://www.smfr.org/mtnw/) can use a newsrc file on a remote server, it does not (in OS X) support multiple signatures (there *was* a work around for this in OS 9), and if your home NewsServer does not carry groups that your work one does (or vice versa) things can get frustrating.
There is a _lot_ to be said for command lines. The only downside is that you don't get to see X-Faces, although rumours of the mythical xtin are persistent . . .
[edit] MT-NewsWatcher
Simon Fraser, http://www.smfr.org/mtnw/
This has already been mentioned above, but I thought it deserved its own section. It is an on-line reader (meaning that it needs a continuous internet connection; this is probably not too great a problem in these days of broadband) and available for both Classic MacOS and also of course MacOS X, and it's free.
The history of MT-Newswatcher goes back to around 1994 when John Norstad at Northwestern University released the source of his program, NewsWatcher 2.2.2, under a license that allowed other developers to extend his work and release their own improved versions. Several people did this, but MT-Newswatcher seems to be the only one to have survived the transition to MacOS X intact.
It has an uncluttered, easy-to-use interface, and observes Apple's HI guidelines. Also, it has earned "The Good Net-Keeping Seal of Approval" award (see http://www.gnksa.org/ for details) for compliance with all the rules and conventions of Usenet. It supports all the usual niceties (X-Face, references threading, filtering rules, multiple configurable servers and identities, etc.) and indeed, was updated recently to version 3.4 adding a few very useful features such as support for MacOS's inline spelling checker.
[edit] Mozilla Thunderbird
Mozilla Foundation, http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/
Thunderbird is the combined mail and news client from the Mozilla Foundation, and can therefore be seen as a companion to the Firefox web browser.
It's primarily an on-line newsreader, and is also a fully featured mail client. Its open source, cross-platform origins make a very powerful and stable piece of software, however it's not very pretty or particularly "Mac-like". It can be customised using downloadable extensions and themes, more of which become available all the time.
[edit] Google Groups
Okay, so this isn't actually a news reader as such, and it makes the whole of Usenet look like one big web-board, but can be useful if you're not at your own computer, or you want to delve back into the archives. Simply point your favourite web browser at http://groups-beta.google.com/group/uk.comp.sys.mac and browse to your heart's content.
The biggest problem with Google Groups is that its default mode for replying to posts is broken - it doesn't allow quoting. So don't use the "Reply" link at the bottom of an article to reply. Instead click the "show options" link in the post header, and then click on the "Reply" link that appears, which allows proper quoting.
[edit] Gemini
I thought this newsreader worth a mention. As a switcher from Windows I find it's the closest thing to Outlook Express available for OS X. To some that may not be a good thing, but switchers may find Gemini a gentle introduction in to the world of OS X newsreaders. Find it at http://www.intellegit.com/software/gemini/
[edit] Microsoft Entourage
If you buy Office v.X or Office 2004 you will have a copy of Entourage. This contains a workable newsreader which you might find works well enough. It doesn't work terribly well with binary newsgroups (e.g. reassembling multi-part files) and the threading is a bit limited. But if you're already using Entourage for mail and stuff you should give the news side a go.
[edit] Hogwasher
Kurt Spaker, http://www.asar.com/
Registration $49 (Upgrade $25)
Hogwasher's strengths are as an off-line newsreader although it also functions well as an on-line client (single-click to retrieve article bodies) and the switch between the two modes is implemented very elegantly. Multiple accounts are supported along with e-mail handling.
The user interface provides a number of ways to work with groups, messages and bodies. Articles can be opened in their own window with a graphical thread tree display or all of these can be combined into a single three-pane browser window.
With off-line use articles can be marked for later download and filtering capabilities are extensive, allowing articles to be deleted or downloaded automatically based upon subject, author, length etc. Filters can also be set to expire after a period of time. Binary attachments are supported, including a built-in image viewer. Compared to competitors the price is somewhat steep.
[edit] Unison
Panic, http://www.panic.com/unison/
Commercial $24.95
I switched to this because it supports quite flexible filtering on incoming posts, including filtering on the numbers of crossposts and regular expression filtering on subject/name/etc.
The interface looks quite plain, but I think this is deceptive. It actually works very well and quickly. Articles are displayed with quoting bars like Mail's, and edited in the same way. There's good support for binaries too - automatic reassembling of multi-part files, grouping of related files, etc.
The authors are actively developing Unison (many of the other newsreaders mentioned on this page are not being actively developed), and are very responsive to questions and suggestions.
