NewsBin Pro

5.0 stars

"No Idea Where The Supposed Issues Are - 10 years of use"

May 19, 2011  |   By JSmith1964

Version: NewsBin Pro 5.59

Pros

Been using this for roughly 10 years. Sure the first few versions were not perfect ... what software is. But all the negative comments about hard to use, configure and so on are either rubbish or the reviewer needs A Computer for Dummies Book.

Cons

None in my experience ... oh and contrary to the person claiming it is expensive that is silly. The purchase price is paid for in time saved not to mention it includes lifetime updates.

Summary

Yet to find one that works better, but always willing to try others on the chance that someone comes up with something. So far tried almost all the supposed better applications and none compare.

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4.0 stars

"Gets the job done"

October 22, 2010  |   By pselby

Version: NewsBin Pro 5.58

Pros

Once you understand how it works, it's very straightforward. You just select what you want to download and it does everything else for you, including determining if any recovery files are needed, fixing the set, and decoding to a final product.

Cons

As others have said it's not as intuitive as I'd like, especially with headers.

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5.0 stars

"This versatile system works unfailingly on nzb files"

November 1, 2009  |   By tom13luck6

Version: NewsBin Pro 5.54

Pros

simple easy to use and works every time without any glitches you often find on software programmes

Cons

have found no problems whatsoever

Summary

this programme works faultlessly and have never had a moments problem through all its upgrades and have been using it for some years without a single problem

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5.0 stars

"Very good all the time"

September 24, 2009  |   By issachar1992

Version: NewsBin Pro 5.53 Build 9507

Pros

Comprehensive, feature filled, flexible,solid performer

Cons

takes effort to learn the multitude of features, but it is time well spend for the serious user.

Summary

Outstanding product for the serious user, but probably too much for the occasional player.

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4.0 stars

"Works very well after getting past the learning curve"

August 16, 2009  |  

Version: NewsBin Pro 5.53 Build 9507

Pros

makes using the Usenet easy

Cons

Learning how to use Newsbin is a bit difficult - could be more intuitive for newbies

Summary

This product is so feature filled that it takes a long time, with some good understanding of technical terms, to learn. Once learned, it flys!

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5.0 stars

"Absolutley the best Usenet downloader available!"

February 10, 2009  |   By thebooda79

Version: NewsBin Pro 5.50 Beta 8

Pros

Find what you want from Usenet fast. Easy to set up! AutoPar, AutoRar, AutoMP3 sorting (from tags) AutoDownload Support is constantly available in the forums. User community very helpful. Price is beyond reasonable.

Cons

you keep up with the ongoing development of this software you may hit some bumps with the Beta releases. But that is short lived as the developers fix their software FAST.

Summary

I have used NewsBin Pro so long now I can't remember exactly how long it has
been. Over 10 years! The developers continually update their software. Support from the authors and users on the NewsBin forums is second to none. The $35 registration price is beyond fair and includes lifetime upgrades. I have tried many of the other competitors and none come close to NewsBin!

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3.0 stars

"Lots of potential but clunky to use and slow"

September 24, 2008  |   By rjmayer

Version: NewsBin Pro 5.34

Pros

Grouping capability is nice, as is ability to search across all groups.
Filtering capability is enticing, although not as good as it could be.
It handles very large groups better than some other readers (150M headers)

Cons

Slow, especially on searches, which are orders of magnitude slower than other readers.
UI is hard to get used to, not intuitive at all, with different windows, all of which have tabs, and lots of different info hidden in different places.

Summary

I've seen reviews saying this is the best newsreader out there, but this has so many serious flaws that in the end its no better than newleecher or grabit. One just has to choose which flawed product to put up with.

The filters could be great, but many of them have set choices (like file size) rather than allowing a value, and some obvious filters like poster just don't exist. So the result is not as good as other products that have less capability but are more flexible.
You have to rely more on text searches, which are impossibly slow, and the whole thing was just frustrating.

The color/font customization again was kind of half assed - you can only use some font size values and cannot change the font spacing, and only some of the color settings.

The automatic decoding (they call it AutoRAR) would not work no matter what I did, and even when I turned it off, it would not go away completely, so I had an even more manual process than normal to use PAR files.

I thought I would stick with this for a while, but its just so cumbersome to use, I'm going to go back to one of the others.

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1.0 stars

"Never again"

June 8, 2008  |   By Russbo50

Version: NewsBin Pro 5.34

Pros

The interface looks a lot better than it used to. Set up was easy.

Cons

I have used Newsbin Pro for a long time. Changed computers and decided to go with the new program. It took four hours just to figure out how to download headers. I can only imagine the frustration of someone new to this. I'm really glad I tried the free download before buying. Now I need to find a newsgroup reader that is usable.

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2.0 stars

"Needs Serious Work!!"

January 3, 2008  |   By jayw654

Version: NewsBin Pro 5.34

Pros

it works well as a downloader without SSL but not good for much else. But the program is the best out there and that's not really saying much.

Cons

Yeah i actually bought the program. The writer of this program is slow to fix bugs. SSL doesn't work very well and is needed the most (everyone knows the reason why it's needed so bad so i won't go into it). SSL connections tend to be unstable they will try to connect to several different files at once rather than working together one 1 file and going to the next. It will catch and correct itself most times but still you can tell it not very well written for SSL. so if you use 8 connections it will try to say for example connect to rar's 1-8 rather than using all 8 connections to complete rar number 1. Sometimes this issue will cause corrupted data on SSL. He says it's a downloader only but i still say uploading is important and this program doesn't do that too well, it will do it but it tends to run blind and is hard to see if everything is actually working okay. The User interface looks dated but hey you might like the mid 1990's look. Even the icons look dated and they were recently added. At the time of writing the review the production release was 5.35 and the latest beta is 5.40 b11 64bit. He charges for the search feature that's within the program guess he's greedy, why not add binsearch into the software? Then searches would be free for everyone. Heck alt.binz did it, that was one of the best ideas, then end users can have an integrated search without paying. But even still don't pay for the search feature use www binsearch info or www nzbindex nl . Bottom line If you want to buy it then you'll get the best but as i said that's not saying much i feel people should get a free binary downloader then maybe he'll get off his butt and write some major fixes rather than small bug fixes.

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