Usenet reader

[Jim the Geordie]

Remind me. Is there a decent free alternative to Phonews (free)?
I'm sure I used to have one on my old phone, but nothing on Play Store
rings any bells.
Phonews is fine except I cannot reply from it without parting with money.

[AJL]

Post by Jim the Geordie
Remind me. Is there a decent free alternative to Phonews (free)?
I'm sure I used to have one on my old phone, but nothing on Play Store
rings any bells.
Phonews is fine except I cannot reply from it without parting with money.

I bought this PhoNews Pro I'm posting with for 2 bucks (US) around 6 years
ago. I think I got my money's worth don't you? Probably a few bucks more by
now? Outrageous... 8-O

[AJL]

Post by AJL

Post by Jim the Geordie
Remind me. Is there a decent free alternative to Phonews (free)?
I'm sure I used to have one on my old phone, but nothing on Play Store
rings any bells.
Phonews is fine except I cannot reply from it without parting with money.

I bought this PhoNews Pro I'm posting with for 2 bucks (US) around 6 years
ago. I think I got my money's worth don't you? Probably a few bucks more by
now? Outrageous... 8-O

Damn. I just looked it up and I paid the outrageous price of $1.99 for my
PhoNews Pro app in June of 2019 when the cost today is now $1.49. Damn,
damn, damn. I got cheated. So Jim, I recommend that you wait a few more
years and by then it'll likely be down to a buck and maybe you'll be able
to afford it at that price... ;)

BTW this PhoNews app also works great on this Chromebook which is more than
I can say for my TB newsreader... :-/

[Andrews]

Post by AJL
Damn. I just looked it up and I paid the outrageous price of $1.99 for my
PhoNews Pro app in June of 2019 when the cost today is now $1.49. Damn,
damn, damn. I got cheated.

Hell, I get "PhoNews" in my header.... for free!

*User-Agent: PhoNews/3.13.3 (Android/13)*

Ask Frank. He knows how I manage that. :)

[AJL]

Post by Andrews

Post by AJL
Damn. I just looked it up and I paid the outrageous price of $1.99 for my
PhoNews Pro app in June of 2019 when the cost today is now $1.49. Damn,
damn, damn. I got cheated.

Hell, I get "PhoNews" in my header.... for free!

That ain't nothing. I've been getting free headers since I was a teenager...
;)

[Dave Royal]

Post by Jim the Geordie
Remind me. Is there a decent free alternative to Phonews (free)?
I'm sure I used to have one on my old phone, but nothing on Play Store
rings any bells.
Phonews is fine except I cannot reply from it without parting with money.

Many recent posts in news.software.readers

[D]

Post by Jim the Geordie
Remind me. Is there a decent free alternative to Phonews (free)?
I'm sure I used to have one on my old phone, but nothing on Play Store
rings any bells.
Phonews is fine except I cannot reply from it without parting with money.

for accessing usenet newsgroups it's (obviously) always best to use
a dedicated newsreader with comprehensive scoring features, but for
convenient access using any web browser, the newsgrouper website is
really excellent, because it "piggybacks" on two major news servers
news:news.blueworldhosting.com, and news:news.eternal-september.org,
which carry tens of thousands of newsgroups, with article retention
on average twenty-one years thanks to blueworldhosting's newsserver

e.g., this newsgroup https://newsgrouper.org.uk/comp.mobile.android,
and browse https://newsgrouper.org.uk/comp.mobile.android/search to
find articles using search criteria, or find any article spooled in
any of about forty-five thousand newsgroups by searching message-id
https://newsgrouper.org.uk/ . . . it can filter "from" headers, too

android newsreaders may improve with increased user interest in the
nntp format (e.g., a brand new version of 40tude dialog for android
would be awesome, and mozilla could make thunderbird more newsgroup
friendly, but that seems unlikely given each update makes it worse);
this seems counterintuitive, since firefox updates are usually less
troublesome for users (some users might disagree), so why is t-bird
so rife with user complaints? imo, it's just not very user-friendly
and thus far, "thunderbird for android" has no usenet functionality

(using Tor Browser 14.0.1)
https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/mobile/

[AJL]

mozilla could make thunderbird more friendly, but that seems unlikely
given each update makes it worse

One simple solution for that update problem is to use an old version of
TB just for newsgroups. I like this version 45.0 in that it doesn't bug
me to update. Once I set it up it just works. Course I don't use it for
anything else. Many versions of TB are still available at various
websites. Google is your friend...

[Frank Slootweg]

Post by AJL

mozilla could make thunderbird more friendly, but that seems unlikely
given each update makes it worse

One simple solution for that update problem is to use an old version of
TB just for newsgroups. I like this version 45.0 in that it doesn't bug
me to update. Once I set it up it just works. Course I don't use it for
anything else. Many versions of TB are still available at various
websites. Google is your friend...

(N.B. No need to use your friend to search for "various websites". Older
Thunderbird versions - from 0.1 (!) on - are available from the horses
mouth at <https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/releases/>)

I use - for email, not newsgroups - Thunderbird version 60.9.0, which
also doesn't bug me to update.

Newer versions, which do bug the user to update, can be beaten into
submission:

In folder

C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Thunderbird\distribution
or
C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird\distribution

create file policies.json with content

{
"policies":
{
"DisableAppUpdate": true
}
}

Exit and restart Thunderbird. Done.

Extra -> Options -> Update will now say:

"Updates disabled by your system administrator"

[W. Greenhouse]

Post by Jim the Geordie
Remind me. Is there a decent free alternative to Phonews (free)?
I'm sure I used to have one on my old phone, but nothing on Play Store rings any bells.
Phonews is fine except I cannot reply from it without parting with money.

Depending on how [un]comfortable you find using a terminal on a
touchscreen, Termux has a few newsreader options available. I'm using Emacs/Gnus on
Termux now.