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.
--
Jim the Geordie

On 11/7/24 9:32 AM, Jim the Geordie wrote:
>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

Jim the Geordie <jim@jimXscott.co.uk> Wrote in message:

> 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
--
Remove numerics from my email address.

On Thu, 7 Nov 2024 16:32:33 +0000, Jim the Geordie <jim@jimXscott.co.uk> wrote:
>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," rel="nofollow" target="_blank">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/

On 11/7/24 9:59 AM, AJL wrote:
>On 11/7/24 9:32 AM, Jim the Geordie wrote:
>>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... :-/

On 11/7/2024 11:14 AM, D wrote:

> 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...

AJL <noemail@none.com> wrote:
> On 11/7/2024 11:14 AM, D wrote:
>
> > 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"

AJL wrote on Thu, 7 Nov 2024 18:40:45 -0000 (UTC) :

> 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. :)

On 11/7/24 8:08 PM, Andrews wrote:
>AJL wrote on Thu, 7 Nov 2024 18:40:45 -0000 (UTC) :
>
>> 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...
;)

Jim the Geordie <jim@jimXscott.co.uk> writes:

> 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.