Your newsbot will first go to "SPAM!!!..." and notice that it is present in both the Soup and Salads groups. If you choose the proper settings, your newsbot will ignore this message because it is crossposted to more than one group (which often indicates that it is off-topic). Your newsbot doesn't actually have to see both menus to recognize a crosspost. This is because every individual message will show in its header which newsgroup/s that the message was posted to. So, "SPAM!!!..." will have a header that says its been posted to both Salads and Soups. Assuming your newsbot ignores all crossposts, it will ignore "SPAM!!!..." and move on. Now if your newsbot was not set to ignore all crossposts, it would first have to read the rest of the "SPAM!!!...." messsage before figuring out that it's worthless.
Miscellaneous Issues |
How to use your browser to connect to news |
Most of this section has been moved to FAQ 2 Part B.
In summary, the format is usually news://(newsserver name)/(newsgroup name)
It will only work for your browser if your browser is also configured to read news.
Servers sometimes go down temporarily |
Sometimes servers can't be connected to because the maximum number of connections has been reached. Sometimes, servers reconfigure and are no longer public, even though they were public before. Netscape will tell you that "You do not have permission" or "This server can't talk to you" if a server will not accept public connections. Other programs might not tell you exactly what the reason you can't connect is. Sometimes servers reach the maximum user limit, and you will get a "Too many connections" error. This maximum is often to ensure that a server isn't overloaded by too many users. Do not be surprised to see public servers die out frequently.
Another problem many people have reported |
About a year ago many people who used the AOL ISP and asked me about the same problem. It seems you can access these servers using AOL, but that if you want to use a Win95 internet application, AOL for windows 95 is required (this applies to all internet applications). The problem is that many people who have Win 95 as their operating system do not have AOL for Win 95. They usually have AOL for Windows (at help it will say windows, which really means windows 3.1). The Windows 95 version says clearly that it is Windows 95.
A Unique Problem |
Another person I know came to me with a rather unique problem. They could not contact servers at all, and it turned out that it was because their ISP was a proxy server (just like AOL) that did not allow news connections (unlike AOL). It also happened that the ISP was the only one in that person's country. However, there is certainly salvation available! You can still use web news services like Easynews (http://www.easynews.com). Essentially they do the same as a news server only using webpages (http instead of nttp). They do provide thumbnails of images posted, which is pretty convenient and eliminates plenty of spam (as well as presenting only images). Easynews also sorts these images by poster. Such services require membership.
Newsbot Reviews |
As it stands, the best ones I've evaluated so far are SBNews, Newsbin, and Nomad News. Anawave Gravity comes after Nomad News and is followed by Picture Sucker. Picture Sucker isn't too good, but that's only my evaluation (others might find it very nice). I personally use SBNews and Newsbin regularly, each one for a different situation. However, Nomad News is very nice (and very similar to SBNews).
If you register, Nomad news has no major downsides. However, if you don't register, you have a maximum of 25 downloads per session...ouch. =P
In my reviews I only mention the shareware aspects briefly, because I do not consider it to be a major criteria in determining a program's quality. Instead, I am for the most part reviewing these assuming they are fully registered.
So far I have tried out SBNews, Newsbin, Anawave Gravity, Nomad News, and Picture Sucker. A few general comparisons in terms of shareware limitations:
All except for Picture Sucker is limited if you don't register the shareware. Picture Sucker is a demo advertising a more advanced version called "Picture Sucker Pro." Keep in mind that Picture Sucker ranks 5th in my reviews, so if Picture Sucker Pro is much different, then this is roughly the equivalent of a "shareware limitation".
List of Shareware Limitations
SBNews |
- The unregistered version has all the features of the registered version.
- However, the unregistered version has a time delay at startup. This delay starts off very small (in fact at first it loads faster than most of the other news bots despite this). Every day that passes after you first use it, the time delay increases by 1 day.
- I find this to be fair compared to the alternatives, and even if the countdown gets high, it's not such a big deal if you're doing other tasks meanwhile. It only got up to 1 minute for me before I regged it.
Newsbin |
- The unregistered version has all the basic features of the registered version so far as I know.
- However, every now and then while downloading a nag window pops up. If you don't click on the nag window, the program will pause once all current downloads finish. In other words, this program works fine if you're sitting at the computer the whole time, but you can't have it download while you sleep or practice your eyesight. ;)
Anawave Gravity |
- The program allows you to do everything for 30 days. After that you must register (it will not run otherwise).
Nomad News |
- A limit of 25 downloads per session if you don't register. That's all that I know of.
Before I continue with my review, I should first state that I rank the newsbots personally in this order: SBNews, Newsbot, Nomad News, Anawave Gravity, and then Picture Sucker. This is probably not the same order as you would place them in, since this is just my opinion.
Reviews of SBNews and Newsbin |
You can get a good idea of how SBNews and Newsbin look and work in FAQ 2.
Review of Anawave Gravity |
Advantages:
- Spiffy graphics. Professionally made. Fully functional without registering for up to 30 days. It has a ton of options (and I thought Anawave Websnake had options!)
Disadvantages:
- I got Newsbin working in 2 mins the first time I tried it. Everything was pretty obvious (at least to me). However, after having the experience of trying several newsbots, it took me 10-20 mins to get Gravity downloading properly. So, it is my personal opinion that Gravity is unnecessarily complex. Even after you get Gravity downloading, it takes an unreasonable amount of tinkering in order to get it to skip messages and go to files.
- The program has many detailed features, but they are not worth the added complexity. Newsbin and SBNews are great because of their simplicity (and the fact that they take up a fraction of the space Gravity uses).
- Can't determine how to manually add newsgroups (instead of having Anawave download the list first). If it is possible, then it is not obvious as it is with Newsbin and SBNews. Many things are not obvious with Anawave Gravity. This is not because Anawave is disorganized but because there are so many options that it takes a long time to find the right one. So, I had to wait a few minutes for every server I added just so I can download 9000+ newsgroups when I know I won't need 8990+ of them.
- Not a major downside, but Anawave takes longer than SBNews to load, though it is comparable to Newsbin (varied depending on other factors). This is assuming registration.
- Most importantly, Gravity is not oriented towards downloading only images as Newsbin or SBNews are. It is a newsreader, whereas SBNews and Newsbin may be considered newsbots. In other words, Gravity is primarily for reading and writing messages; downloading images is only part of what it does. I can find no significant practical advantage of using Gravity over Newsbin or SBNews. This is probably again due to the fact that Gravity is a generic newsreader.
- Without registration it allows 30 day use (then croaks), so freeloaders will have to look elsewhere or turn themselves into pirates !).
Verdict:
- My criteria for a good newsbot is efficiency, practicality, and whether or not the program has all the basic features. Gravity requires an unreasonable amount of effort in order to become efficient. As for practicality, I haven't found any practical advantage yet (still looking). It has nearly all the basic features, though the interface is not as straightforward as SBNews or Newsbot.
-Ramses
I write these FAQs in hopes it will benefit and educate you, so as always, feel free to correct me and add your own suggestions. You may remain anonymous or allow me to credit you with the suggestion (I will assume the former but definitely feel free to volunteer the use of your nick in the credits of the FAQ)
