Newsgroups

You find the oddest people online, and you find most of those odd people in newsgroups. Groups are an old Internet staple. Although Web forums and message boards that you can read in your browser have threatened to make newsgroups extinct, there are still dedicated newsgroup users who doggedly check their groups all day and argue to their heart's content.

UNDER THE HOOD

THERE'S NEWS EVERYWHERE

Pan and KNode are dedicated news programs that work only with newsgroups, but almost every Linux e-mail program has news reader features as well. You can access your news server inEvolution, KMail, Thunderbird, and Mozilla Mail. You can also search past newsgroup archives and read groupsthrough your browser with Google Groups (see http://groups.google.com).

A lot of good information is available in newsgroups, along with a lot of misinformation. Groups are one of the last Wild West, not-controlled-by-advertising bastions of Internet freedom. There are newsgroups for just about every subject you can think ofand a few that you don't want to think of. Messages are not really moderated much and can range from helpful to abusive, from stupid to expert. You just have to figure out for yourself what information is credible, who to ignore, and which debates you want to jump into.

Newsgroups are threaded conversations that are listed by date. You subscribe to a group from a list on your local news server, which is usually through your Internet service provider. Messages are listed by thread and by date. You download headers and messages for groups that you are subscribed to. Highlight a message to read it. You can reply to groups and post messages as well. Newsgroups, such as e-mail, are also attacked by spammers, so be careful not to give out your real e-mail address or information in public view.

Pan

Program Info

Fedora/GNOME menu	Internet > Pan Newsreader
Mandrake/KDE menu	Internet > News > Pan
Terminal command	pan
Program URL	http://pan.rebelbase.com/

If you want to spend a lot of time reading and participating in newsgroups, a dedicated and powerful news program is preferable to an e-mail client. Pan is a powerful news program (see Figure 6.7) that features excellent sorting tools, article filtering, multiple connections, and good offline reading options. The development schedule for Pan is quite active, with an average of only three weeks between new versions.

Figure 6.7. Pan viewing available newsgroup list.

Pan is fast and easy to use, with the capability to download and read other articles while previous downloads are going on. Fans of binaries groups (you can download large files in newsgroups in separate binary attachments) will enjoy how multipart messages are displayed together and will appreciate the capability to filter out incomplete multipart messages. There are also a lot of choices for rearranging Pan's layout.

Knode

Program Info

Mandrake/KDE menu	Internet > News > Knode
Terminal command	knode
Program URL	http://knode.sourceforge.net/

KNode (see Figure 6.8) is the kinder, gentler newsgroup client. Like most KDE programs, KNode does the basic job but shows a nicer interface to do the job in. KNode supports the news features that you need, including reading articles, posting articles, threading, sorting, and using multiple news servers, along with some decent support for attachments. This isn't the power user's news reader, but it has everything that the casual news reader will want.

Figure 6.8. Knode is the KDE newsgroup client.

The interface of KNode is very nice looking and blends in well with the KDE desktop and other KDE programs. The interface isn't completely customizable, but it has some well-thought-out usability aspects. You can display attachments inline, configure fonts and colors, and filter messages. KNode also lets you drag and drop between folders and groups. Folders are stored in the common .mbox format, which is handy for importing or exporting. KNode is simple and usable, without getting cluttered.