newsgroup readers

[Tony Baechler]

Hart Larry wrote:
> While there are several scripts to grab binaries, you must know an 
> exact sequence.  I like trn as its menu driven



Hi,

I'm not sure what you mean by "exact sequence" above.  Do you mean that 
you need a list of article numbers?  If you use the nzb format, that is 
done for you and it will fetch all the articles in the nzb list.  I 
think it stands for newzbin or similar.  I haven't tried it, but there 
are various sites and utilities which will create nzb files.  If you 
want everything from a newsgroup, get brag.  It requires tcl and 
uudeview.  I'm not sure what kinds of filters it offers because I just 
use it to get everything.  Make sure you have lots and lots of disk 
space and that you have enough bandwidth with your news provider.  Many 
impose download caps on binaries.  Plan on a lot of temporary space for 
the complete lists of articles and subjects.  Of course there are also 
Windows options, which in my opinion work better than any Linux 
equivalents I've found.  The one I use in Windows is called Android, 
Quadsucker, etc.  All are at http://www.sb-software.com/ and are 
shareware, but again I haven't found a free alternative that I like and 
works well.  Even brag will truncate file names and miss articles for no 
obvious reason.  If anyone knows of a Linux cli reader that handles 
binaries well, I am very interested.  There is one last option.  That's 
easynews.com which is $10 per month.  They let you download everything 
from their web server so you don't have to bother with decoding.  They 
have a limit of I think 20 or 30 GB per month but there are ways to 
"earn" more.  If you have broadband, your ISP might already offer decent 
news service.