MS Outlook & NNTP

[Prof.Wizard]

Is there a way to add newsgroups support for Outlook? It's a shame Outlook Express has usenet newsgroups support and the big brother doesn't have this feature.
The closest I've found regarding News in Outlook was NewsGator. It's an add-on.

And I don't think Outlook 2003 will have NNTP support either.

 

[timwhit]

Outlook Express News is so crappy that it amazes me that anyone would want to use it.

Get a good newsreader such as Agent, or if you are interesting in downloading binaries try GrabIt.

 

[Prof.Wizard]

No need to actually download the binaries, just browse and see... I'll go with Agent. Thanks for the link, tim!

I wasn't aware the OE's news browser was so crappy. It was OK for me and the 2-3 newsgroups I was watching. Maybe if you manage more it becomes unbearable... Anyway, I used it because it was ready in OE.

 

[Prof.Wizard]

//Update: To be frank, tim, Agent's GUI is pretty ancient. They prolly didn't update the interface from Windows 95 era. Can GrabIt be used as a normal newsgroups browser?!

 

[Pradeep]

And I don't think Outlook 2003 will have NNTP support either.

It doesn't.

 

[Will Rickards WT]

Back when outlook had newsgroup support, it didn't really have newsgroup support. What it did was call outlook express with /newsonly flag. I still use that flag on my shortcuts so outlook express is just a newsreader and doesn't try to do e-mail.

 

[blakerwry]

Back when outlook had newsgroup support, it didn't really have newsgroup support. What it did was call outlook express with /newsonly flag. I still use that flag on my shortcuts so outlook express is just a newsreader and doesn't try to do e-mail.

I used to use the opposite flag (/mailonly) so that OE would load quicker since I never used its newsgroup functions

 

[honold]

outlook express has better imap support too - it's a bit of a mess.

i switched to mozilla thunderbird because of oe's imap inadequacies and i've been very pleasantly surprised.

 

[Prof.Wizard]

Jee guys, I don't use any flags. I use Outlook for mail/calendar/to-do lists and I want something to see Newsgroups (except Outlook Express).

But something that doesn't look like Agent (it's archaic Windows 95-style). Do you have any interesting alternatives?

 

[blakerwry]

you could hit up www.webattack.com/freeware

 

[Prof.Wizard]

The reason I posted in a board was because I wanted a trustworthy opinion. I have already found many newsgroups clients (via Google), but I was hoping if you could give me a subjective opinion if you had one.

Timwhit did, but unfortunately Agent is not to my liking because of its archaic GUI. Anyway, blakerwry I'm going with 40tude cause it's cited high in Webattack and seems nice enough.

Thanks for the link.

 

[blakerwry]

That's the reason i gave you webattack.. has a reviewer's rating and has a popularity rating... it also gives a description and screenshots of each app...

It's a great source for share/trial/freeware.

 

[Prof.Wizard]

40tude is cool: XP-looks, recently updated, many functions/settings... and freeware!
I think I'll keep it. Thanks again, blakeboy.

 

[Mercutio]

Peronsally, I choose to use trn for news on the rare days I choose to fire up a USENET client (that's a text-only *nix client that I've customized just the way I like it), but someone recently recommended Diiva to me. Diiva is not free, but it looks like a really slick product.

Of course, the overhead of doing netnews is a bit much on my connection.

 

[honold]

you could look up gravity as well (freeware)

and seriously, check out thunderbird

 

[blakerwry]

you could look up gravity as well (freeware)

and seriously, check out thunderbird

I'm glad you like Moz mail. Thunderbird seems too beta for me, but I think i'll use it instead of moz mail for now.

 

[honold]

one of the more interesting features is that it can 'sanitize' mail it determines to be junk - it disables all the html in it so that you're not 'phoning home' to let them know you got the mail (many spammers now put your unique id in the images you pull down, and are able to verify if you read the mail by parsing the web server logs).

 

[SteveC]

Back when outlook had newsgroup support, it didn't really have newsgroup support. What it did was call outlook express with /newsonly flag. I still use that flag on my shortcuts so outlook express is just a newsreader and doesn't try to do e-mail.

Outlook XP still does that. It's under View->Go To->News, and it'll load OE with the /newsonly flag.

I use Agent for reading newsgroups, and Prof., you're right, it's interface hasn't changed in at least 6 years, but it does work, which is the most important thing.

 

[Prof.Wizard]

you could look up gravity as well (freeware)

and seriously, check out thunderbird

Thank you too, honold, I checked them as well. 8)

But... I would like to avoid 'Zilla software for a while. Not only because it looks too "in the works" for me (like Linux distros, never stopping to update and patch), but also because above all I like eye-candy GUIs. Damn it, I like to look cool on my desktop. Gravity seems very nice and has many citations over the Internet. Too bad the official site is down atm.

PS. And what the hell is this: Microsoft Internet Mail and News? From the age of dinosaurs?!

 

[Prof.Wizard]

one of the more interesting features is that it can 'sanitize' mail it determines to be junk - it disables all the html in it so that you're not 'phoning home' to let them know you got the mail (many spammers now put your unique id in the images you pull down, and are able to verify if you read the mail by parsing the web server logs).

Beh, the important thing would be if spam-protection was ISP (mail-server) based. Spammers should get undeliverable mail... :evil:

But anyway, it's a nice mechanism.

 

[blakerwry]

one of the more interesting features is that it can 'sanitize' mail it determines to be junk - it disables all the html in it so that you're not 'phoning home' to let them know you got the mail (many spammers now put your unique id in the images you pull down, and are able to verify if you read the mail by parsing the web server logs).

Beh, the important thing would be if spam-protection was ISP (mail-server) based. Spammers should get undeliverable mail... :evil:

But anyway, it's a nice mechanism.

There are alot of tools to fight spam on the server-side now.. but I think some ISPs are reluctant to enable it for fear that some customers might complain...

 

[Prof.Wizard]

Gravity seems to blend nice with Netscape Mail (of a couple of years back).
But still the official site is down...

 

[honold]

there is no official site because the project died (and was then released as freeware). people are still developing upon it afaik, you just have to find the new location (use deja.com)

 

[ghostwheel]

If browsing will be main activity, I would highly recommend XNews (http://xnews.newsguy.com/) - very good freeware newsreader.

 

[fool]

honold which build of thunderbird are you using?
and is there anything about it you don't like?

 

[honold]

20030701

i wish the folders weren't so mozilla/boring looking, i wish i could delete collapsed threads (when viewing by thread) with a single delete stroke. that's about it for now.

 

[timwhit]

The interface in Agent might be outdated, but it is still the best all around newsreader. It is faster and more robust than any other news program out there (gui based). However, I use Grabit because all I do is download binaries. And GrabIt is perfect for downloading large batches of binaries.

 

[Pradeep]

one of the more interesting features is that it can 'sanitize' mail it determines to be junk - it disables all the html in it so that you're not 'phoning home' to let them know you got the mail (many spammers now put your unique id in the images you pull down, and are able to verify if you read the mail by parsing the web server logs).

Outlook 2003 disables such images by default.

 

[.Nut]

The interface in Agent might be outdated, but it is still the best all around newsreader...

In my opinion, WinVN is the best newsgroup reader ever devised. It makes newsgroup threads -- long or short -- a lot easier to deal with than anything else I've used.

After well over 10 years, it's still at version 0.9 -- actually 0.99.12.H (heh! ok, the version numbering scheme is an ongoing joke of sorts). By the way, WinVN is a totally free open source program -- not shareware.

http://my.execpc.com/~mspankus/ (...scroll down about half way)

Download at:
http://my.execpc.com/~mspankus/wvinst32.exe

 

[honold]

Outlook 2003 disables such images by default.

it appears that it disables all of it, all of the time, in preview mode. i prefer tbird's junk-detection method.

 

[Pradeep]

Outlook 2003 disables such images by default.

it appears that it disables all of it, all of the time, in preview mode. i prefer tbird's junk-detection method.

You can modify the external content settings so that it won't block content "Web beacon" from a trusted zone or an intranet zone. Not perfect but a step in the right direction.

 

[Prof.Wizard]

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/office2003_outlook_preview.asp