There are several different types of news clients, depending on the type of service the user needs - whether intended primarily for discussion or for downloading files posted to the alt.binaries hierarchy. Although Usenet originally started as a message board without any file attachment ability, many Usenet users today do not participate in NNTP discussion groups, as was common during the 1980s and 1990s before the emergence of website forums, and only use Newsgroups for downloading files such as music, movies, software and games. Therefore, their needs call for a streamlined client for quickly grabbing binary attachments, and without the extraneous clutter of text reading and posting features that file downloaders have little use for. As NZB files have largely replaced the inefficient and time-consuming process of having to download headers, many of the more recently-developed binary downloading clients have dropped header support entirely. A news client is an application software that reads articles on Usenet (generally known as newsgroup), either directly from the news servers disks or via the Network News Transfer Protocol. ... Usenet (USEr NETwork) is a global, decentralized, distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name. ... The Network News Transport Protocol or NNTP is an Internet application protocol used primarily for reading and posting Usenet articles, as well as transferring news among servers. ... NZB is an XML-based file format for retrieving posts from NNTP (Usenet) servers. ...

Types of Clients

1. Traditional newsreaders - designed primarily for reading/posting text posts; limited and often cumbersome binary attachment download functionality. (example: most email clients such as Outlook Express and Netscape, as well as more specialized newsreaders such as Agent)
2. Binary grabbers/pluckers - designed specifically for easy and efficient downloading of multi-part binary post attachments; limited or nonexistent reading/posting ability. These generally offer multi-server and multi-connection support. Most now support NZBs, and several either support or plan to support automatic Par2 processing. (example: Grabit, Newsbin, Newsleecher)
3. NZB downloaders - basically a binary grabber client without header support; can only load 3rd-party NZBs to download binary post attachments; Since there's no support for viewing a NNTP server's grouplist or headers, they cannot browse groups or read/post text messages. (Example: NZB-O-Matic, SABnzbd, Ninan)
4. Binary Posting Clients - designed specifically and exclusively for posting multi-part binary files. (example: PowerPost)
5. Combination client - Jack-of-all-trades that fully supports text reading/posting, as well as hassle-free multi-segment binary downloading. Being the most complex and feature-rich, these also tend to be the most difficult to learn. (example: Usenet Explorer)

News Clients

Graphical

Proprietary software

Commercial software

• Binbot
• Forté Agent
• Lotus Notes
• NewsBin
• Newsman Pro
• Novell GroupWise
• Outlook Express
• Turnpike
• Unison - for Mac OS X
• Usenet Explorer

Binbot is a newsreader for downloading binary content from Usenet. ... Forté Agent Forté Agent is a news client used on the Windows operating system. ... Lotus Notes is a client-server collaborative software and e-mail system owned by Lotus Software, of the IBM Software Group. ... NewsBin is a news client used on the Windows operating system. ... Newsman Pro is a Usenet newsreader supporting the browsing and reading of test messages posted to Usenet newsgroups as well as full support for binary newsgroup downloading. ... GroupWise is a cross-platform collaborative software product from Novell, Inc. ... For the personal information manager included in the Microsoft Office suite, see Microsoft Outlook. ... Turnpike is a software suite for Microsoft Windows, originally written by Chris Hall and Richard Clayton. ... Unison is a Mac OS X client for Usenet, developed by Panic Software. ... Usenet Explorer is a combined text&binary Usenet client. ...

Freeware

• GrabIt
• Opera M2
• Xnews

GrabIt is a Windows-based freeware newsreader programmed and developed by Ilan Shemes. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Xnews is a freeware Usenet newsreader created by Luu Tran. ...

Shareware

• Unison (Mac OS X)

Unison is a Mac OS X client for Usenet, developed by Panic Software. ...

Free/open source software

• Arachne (with aranews.apm package)
• KLibido
• KNode
• Lynx (has limited USENET support)
• MicroPlanet Gravity
• Mozilla Mail & Newsgroups
• Mozilla Thunderbird
• Pan
• SeaMonkey Mail & Newsgroups
• Sylpheed
• XPN

Clockwise from top: The logo of the GNU Project, the Linux kernel mascot Tux, and the BSD Daemon Free software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions only... Arachne is a full-screen Internet suite containing a graphical web browser, email client, and dialer. ... KLibido is a news client for the KDE desktop, developed by Bauno Bonometti and others. ... KNode is the Usenet newsreader program in KDE. It supports multiple NNTP servers, message threads, scoring, international character sets, and can be integrated seamlessly into Kontact. ... Lynx is a text-only web browser for use on cursor-addressable, character cell terminals. ... MicroPlanet Gravity is a full featured Windows Usenet online/offline news client with an extensive feature list. ... Mozilla Mail & Newsgroups (also referred to as Mozilla Mail/News or simply Mozilla Mail) is an email and newsgroups client that is part of the Mozilla Internet software suite. ... Mozilla Thunderbird is a free, cross-platform e-mail and news client developed by the Mozilla Foundation. ... A Pan command menu. ... SeaMonkey is a free, open source, and cross-platform Internet suite that is the continuation of the former Mozilla Application Suite. ... Sylpheed is an email and news client based on the GTK+ library. ... XPN (X Python Newsreader) is a news client written in Python and based on the GTK+ library. ...

Text-based

• Gnus
• Mutt
• nn
• Pine
• rn
• Slrn
• tin

Gnus is a message reader running under GNU Emacs and XEmacs. ... Mutt is a text-based e-mail client for Unix-like systems. ... Nn (newsreader) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... Pine is a powerful freeware text-based e-mail client: the University of Washingtons mail user agent (Email client) its name being an acronym for: Program for Internet News & Email (or PINE Is Nolonger Elm if you so prefer. ... Alternate uses, see rn (disambiguation) rn (short for Read News) is a program for reading Usenet news written by Larry Wall. ... Slrn is an open source text-based newsreader. ... tin is an open source text-based news client. ...

External links

• Usenet clients at the Open Directory Project
• Macintosh Newsreaders at The Mac Orchard