I prefer WinVN to all other UseNet newsreaders. Forte Free Agent is certainly worthwhile, but I still like WinVN better because it presents busy newsgroups in the most legible and easy-to-follow manner I've ever seen with its character terminal emulation.
When I actually have the time, I will visit a lot of different musical instrument, pro audio, and maybe a music newgroup or two. Many of these newsgroups can be really busy -- lots of articles and threads. When I log into one of these newsgroups, I always use "View: Sort By Thread/Subject" to look at what's been posted, and this view mode cuts through the noise especially well.
WinVN was created by NASA software designers a long time ago and has always been totally free. It is now being maintained by an individual who has done a lot to track down any bugs when users report them and to make it run properly on the latest versions of Windows operating systems.
The latest version of WinVN is 0.99.12R (released 12-Sept-2006). Just in case you are wondering, there has always been an unwritten rule (a joke, more or less) between all of the WinVN developers over the past 15+ years that WinVN version 1.0 will never be allowed to exist!
You can get the latest version of WinVN 0.99.12R about half way down the page at:
http://www.marks-lab.com/
