The software as reviewed still PASSES the Good Net-Keeping Seal of Approval for Usenet Software (version 0.76 already passed GNKSA/U).

This software may be downloaded at the following adresses :

Compared to version 0.86 which has been recently evaluated, the author improved several points (not directly required by GNKSA/U but often considered as key points for making a good newsreader) :

  1. The syntax validity checking has been extended to the Reply-To: field. It is now impossible to post an article with syntaxically invalid From: or Reply-To: fields,
  2. The user is warned when posting articles containing lines with more than 80 characters,

Some points could still be improved :

  1. It is still possible to post articles articles with only quoted text.

Some useful features have been added :

  1. Kill files support (kill by subject) with a nice visual editor.

Some useful features could be added :

  1. Making threading more visual (well, this is certainly a matter of personal feeling...:-))
  2. I have no more idea. News is now IMHO a very complete, useful, efficient and Usenet-friendly newsreader. I will certainly recommend it besides WinVN (which I'm addicted to, because of pure personal feelings!). More complete features for offline use would be useful but I have no experience here and do not know what is useful for users.

Congratulations to Mr Tollefsen!

As he seems to work for Microsoft, I wouyld strongly suggest to people at MS to use his deep competence for writing good newsreaders. MS newsreaders are jokes compared to News.....

Below is the detailed evaluation checklist :

Subject: The detailed evaluation checklist 
   
Req Itm                                          Sub-    Item   
rd? ##  Description                            item OK?   OK?     Notes   
   
Y    1  Display all essential header info                 YES
  Y       default is to display                   YES               
  Y       a) display author                       YES   
  Y       b) display subject                      YES   
  Y       c) display newsgroups list              YES   
  Y       d) display Followup-To list             YES
  Y       e) display Reply-To if /= From:         YES
   
Y    2  Provide standard commands                         YES  
  Y       clear                                   YES
  Y       separate                                YES 
  Y       a) post a new article                   YES
  Y       b) post a followup article              YES   
  Y       c) reply by email                       YES
  N       use standard terminology                YES                 
   
Y    3  Implement cross-posting                           YES   
  Y       allow user specification                YES
  Y       cross-post (not multi-post)             YES  
   
Y    4  Change essential headers                          YES
  Y       change headers while editing body       YES   
  Y       change Subject                          YES   
  Y       allow at least 70 chars in subject      YES   
  Y       change Newsgroups                       YES   
  Y       change Followup-To                      YES
  Y       allow followup-to: poster               YES                 
  Y       change Reply-To                         YES                 
   
Y    5  Correct Subject headers in flwup/rply             YES   
  Y       a) prepend "Re: " (exactly!)            YES   
  Y       b) preserve entire Subject              YES   
  Y          even subjects > 80 chars long        YES   
   
Y    6  Respect Followup-To                               YES  
  Y       use to initialize Newsgroups: in flwup  YES
  Y       recognize and act on 'poster'           YES                1)          
  
Y    7  Followups contain References                      YES   
  Y       contains message-id of original         YES   
  Y       never truncate individual message-id    YES
  N       contains three Refs from original       YES   
  N       contains entire Refs of original        YES   
   
Y    8  Direct email reply to Reply-To                    YES
   
Y    9  Quotation and attribution                         YES  
  Y       provide method                          YES   
  Y       set off by prepend                      YES               
  Y       attribution line                        YES
  Y         identifies author                     YES               
  N         gives message-id                      YES               
   
Y   10  Subject is mandatory                              YES   
  Y       do not post empty or provide <none>     YES              
  Y       allow change while editing body         YES   
   

Y   11  Must provide valid From: header                   YES
  Y       syntactically valid                     YES               
  N       belongs to the user                     NO                2)
   
Y   12  Must provide cancel                               YES   
  Y       of own articles                         YES   
  Y       *not* of others                         YES               
   
N   13  Respect line length, and post WYSIWYG             YES   
  N       line brks shown are present when posted YES   
  N       do *not* post paragraph w/o line brks   YES   
  N       warn if body has lines > 80 chars       YES                   
  N       external editor conforms                N/A   
   
N   14  Prevent obvious errors                            NO          
  N       prevent posting empty article           YES
  N       prevent posting only quoted text        NO

Notes to the checklist

First a short description of what the columns in this checklist stand for:

Req?:
A "Y" means that the item or subitem is a MUST for the software in order to get the Good Net-Keeping Seal Approval.
ITM ##:
This is the item number in the GNKS document : <http://www.cybe rcom.net/~rnewman/Good_Netkeeping_Seal>
Description:
Follow the above link to the original document for a more detailed description and an explanation of the rationale behind it.
Subitem OK ?: and Item OK?:
If the item is required, this is marked "YES" if all _required_ subitems are ok. If it is _not_ required, it is marked "YES" if if _all_ subitems are ok.
Notes:
These are given below:
  1. News _refuses_ to post a follow-up when Followup-To: poster is in headers. A suggestion for replying by email is made.
  2. This may be considered impossible on a single user (no real system administrator) platform (I tested under Windoze 95).
This evaluation has been conducted by Christian Perrier