Question:
I need a new newsreader. It will be an additional one, rather than
replacing Free Agent. At work, as part of our collaborative culture,
we have "Wizards" forums, where people swap information and knowledge.
They used to come through as email (with Rules to filter into
folders), but now they're available as newsgroups.
However, as I can't get FA to handle more than one news account, I
thought I'd get another one. Which one shall I get?
Gravity can handle more than one account. It is free for 30 days but
after that you'll have to pay. I use Gravity and like it (for a Windows
newsreader.) I assume Agent does more than one account if you want to
pay for an upgrade, BICBW.
No, it doesn't.
However, you can run two separate instances of Free / Agent in separate
folders. You can even use the same .exe
Create a duplicate copy of your Agent shortcut on the desktop (right
click, copy), rename it (right-click, rename), and change the working
directory (right-click, properties, "short-cut" tab, Start In") to a
pre-existing new directory, then run Agnet, which will then behave as if it were a new copy, which you can customize at will.
Being a bit of news nut, I use Gravity as well as Agent. I think this came
from trying them both out with a view to moving to only one of them but the
tuit hasn't yet arrived.
They both have their pros and cons but for me, the idea of using separate
instances of Agent is an easier route for multiple news servers because I
have to make the conscious decision from the desktop, it also keeps this
instance available only for umra and two rather small groups. I suppose
you could say that it provides my brain with a context before downloading
but it also has the side effect of keeping the download sessions down to
something in the region of a couple of minutes at a time.
It's not Gravity's fault that I only use it for Usenet-oriented groups and
unna/c/m.
Last updated
February 16th 2004
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