> > I've been using Free Agent as my NG reader in window$ for as long as
> > I have been online. Now that I'm moving up to Linux, what do you
> > recommend? Thanks.
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Linux has nothing that even remotely matches Agent/Free Agent, or the
other Windows newsreaders, *PARTICULARLY* in regard to handling binary
files (pics, mp3's). Agent just downloads them and automatically and
quickly opens the file in Winamp or in an photo/image viewer like
VuePro. In Linux you've got to download the file and then start another
helper application to open the file separately - kind of like going out
in the winter cold to crank-start your car and then opening the hood to
manually start it again at every traffic light/stop sign, and then once
you're finished driving it.
A killer-app is one that you'd be willing to change OS's for - the
Agent/Vuepro combination is a killer app in my opinion.
I always use SLRN for news - it is very fast and fairly efficient for
TEXT, but it won't handle binaries hardly at all - at least not without
the tedious manual downloading, saving to a directory and then
re-opening with another application like Winamp or XV photo viewer
etc.. I LOVE Linux, but it's a definite "non-player" in the Usenet
world.. I'd certainly go ahead and purchase a commercial app for Linux
if there were one that was anywhere near the efficiency/ability of
Agent.
