Warp wrote:
>> Unfortunately, Outlook Express remains the best NNTP reader I have ever
>> used.
> 
>   Hmm, I sense a contradiction here.
> 

For one, I haven't used any other newsreader that had a decent offline mode.

I'm currently using KNode, which apparently keeps a stupidly small cache. I
once held the down arrow key so that lots of messages got loaded. I went to
the first and noticed it wasn't loaded (there is a checkmark next to
messages available in the local cache). I later saw the darned checkmarks
disappearing off messages as they appeared on others. I can't find any
setting to make it keep the messages cached, or to increase the size.

Thunderbird seemed to have two ways of working. One: keep *whole* newsgroups
preloaded and cached locally. Two: flush the cache as soon as you start
reading a different group or close the program. Except for messages with
attachments, which seemed to *always* load off the server.

Outlook Express, on the other hand, was what I used for more than a year
over dialup. I could mark messages for download (based on interesting
subjects), connect to the 'net, have them downloaded, disconnect, and read
them. And once a message was downloaded, it stayed downloaded forever.

OE functionality is really useful even on high speed Internet. Going to the
next message is an instant operation, and I can immediately start reading
it. And while reading it, a huge image from p.b.i can be downloading for
later. I can be more time reading and less time waiting for downloads,
because that happens in the background.

Either way, any newsreader is better than a web forum; at the very least
because it can be navigated with a keyboard, and has real threading.

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