© 2002 Todd K. Frazier. All Rights Reserved.
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YA Newswatcher has been updated for the final time to version 2.4.
By the way, YA stands for "Yet Another". At this point you are probably asking yourself a question:
What exactly is YA Newswatcher?
Well, the software 'readme' says:
"Yet Another NewsWatcher is a Usenet newsreader application for Macintosh. Its features include binary and anonymous remailer posting, flexible article filtering (kill files) and sorting, support for PGP via AppleScript, reference-based threading, and comprehensive multiple character set support for reading and posting in non-English language and non-latin alphabet newsgroups."
The problem with the explanation is that it isn't very clear. In reality, there are four modified versions of Newswatcher known to myself (VA-Value Added, MT-Multi Threaded, WS-Working Software, and YA). Each of them tries to add something that an avid usenet fan wanted to see included in the orginal program written by John Norstaad. Most of the versions are no longer supported as the additions either didn't catch on, or they were absorbed into Norstaad's next update. And, as Netscape has recently included a news browser in its own internet package, there is no longer a reason to write updates to the less popular applications. Now, even YA is no longer being developed, which is a shame.
So, what is the point of telling you about an application that won't be updated or supported? Simple. There is no better news reader available for the Macintosh. Of course, that's simply my opinion. Fortunately, it's shared by many of the people I look up to in the world of Macintosh and the Internet. I've found that all the other various newsreaders simply are either too complex, too slow, or simply don't have the functionality that I'm looking for. Why not download YA Newswatcher 2.4 and give it a try. You might be plesantly surprised.
