Pros
good program, even with limitations.
Cons
choose custom install if offered whitesmoke, and uncheck everything for the install. whitesmoke is known malware, surprised cnet is trying to get people to install it.
Summary
grabit good, cnet installer not so good anymore.
Pros
It is fast to react to commands and I had no issues at all. In addition it was free
Cons
Some files wouldnt open
Pros
Combined with the binsearch.info website, gets downloads started quickly, reliabley, and efficently. NO idea what the reviewer meant about selling their service. It works fine with any news provider.
Cons
Running SSL sometimes has problems connecting. Sometimes crashes when shutting down with SSL. I switch back and forth and then it runs ok for a week or tow. A minor annoyance. Occsionally gets stuck on some downloads. exiting and restarting with save option clears this up
Summary
Overall, it's very effective except for a few glitches that I'm sure they;re working on
Pros
Compact, simple interface.
Cons
Labeled as free, but has monthly fee for any thing over the "daily limit" No grouping like in other news readers.
Summary
If your software is not freeware, but requires a subscription to use, do not label it as free.
Pros
Works well to grab articles.
Cons
Brings system to a crawl and then kicks it in the shins. Pain in the butt to search articles. Did I mention it is slow?
Summary
From a pure feature-set standpoint, this is a reasonable product, though it is lacking features of for-pay competitiors. It's ability to aggragate articles and queue downloads is decent. The layout is generally good. Grabbing articles is quick... until it brings your system to its knees.
Things to do: Improve search and write app more efficiently.
Pros
Extremely easy, fast.
Cons
Built in search function is pretty crappy, get yourself a Newzbin invite and use that to search. Add the Greasemonkey Newzbin poster script on userscripts as well to make the experience better.
Support isn't great.
Summary
Not perfect, but nothing free is. Use this.
Pros
Very fast! The chances are that it will tax your internet connection to its limits. Once configured, you can have up to 32 simultaneous connections to your server... IF your server allows that many.
Cons
The default connection per server is 3. This may not be the optimum setting, depending on your server. In its defense though, there are probably many servers out there that don't allow more than 3 connections.
Summary
The reason the previously mentioned limitation is minor is because there are free websites to do the searching on - binsearch DOT com being one common one. It will search for the desired file and can even create an NZB if the poster didn't go through the process of creating one.
The means to increase the number of simultaneous connections is simple, but I had to Google to find out how it's done:
1) Right click on the server's name (often called "default server")
2) Select Server Properties
3) Set "Maximum allowed connections" as desired.
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Bottom line: If you want completely free files and have a Usenet account, all you need is Grabit and the Binsearch website.
Updated on Oct 17, 2009
Oh, yeah... I found it somewhat annoying that by default Grabit automatically repairs the files if PARs are available, extracts them if they were compressed and deletes the files downloaded if the repair and extract are successful. Why am I annoyed? The problem is that if I'm downloading more than one NZB, it'll take up processor time and slow down the download. Fortunately it is possible to disable this in numerous ways via the impressive variety of options available through the Edit | Preferences menu.
Read reply (1)
Reply by ipmccauley on December 7, 2009
Thank you for the concise review. It was helpful for me in both determining if this was the right Usenet reader for me and what its capabilities were. Well said.
Pros
It grabs the torrents and repairs them when possible and makes them ready to use!!
Cons
none no cons
Summary
Its ease of use!
Read reply (1)
Reply by bugbugbug123 on June 5, 2016
This software has absolutely NOTHING to do with torrents. It is for usenet. Completely different in so many ways.
Pros
Nice interface. Easy to use. Quick downloads.
Cons
After you search one time it prompts you to buy there service and doesn't let you search any more.
Also if you are downloading several mail items and want to pause just 1 or 2 out 5 let's say, this software will not let you do this.
Summary
Has great potential, but there are limitations. So if you have some extra money burning a whole in your pockets then go for it.
Without the ability to pause individual mail downloads and the fact that you need to subscribe to their service in order to search, I am staying away.
Pros
usually able to grab binaries from across different newsgroups and sort according to groups or specific folders
Cons
no inline previewing of graphic images prior to downloading associated binaries
Please Wait
