Once upon a time (about 10 years ago), I was a prolific reader of usenet newsgroups. Back then I used a program called Agent (I think that there was also a free version) to follow all the discussions. At some point my HD crashed and I just stopped reading usenet newsgroups. Now I would like to jump back in. However, since then RSS has become popular. So, I am looking for comparative reviews of software tools that can handle both RSS feeds and usenet newsgroup traffic. (Do these even exist?). And if possible something that also will handle email traffic from Yahoogroups and listserve data. I do not really need support for binaries but definitely want something that will properly thread text messages and has powerful filtering capabilities to eliminate spam. Obviously, open source or freeware would be a good thing. However, I do not even mind paying a few bucks if the license is not such that I have to basically pay the license fee every year over and over. Would prefer to NOT use Outlook (as I currently have some issues with it--BCM related). If you post a recommendation here, please state why you chose whichever program you did (i.e. what it does better than the competition or why you did not choose another program). (While it might be interesting to know what everybody uses, it does not help me as much if you do not explain why you chose whatever program you did). Otherwise, please feel free to post a link to an authoritative review of all the products available (if you think that the reviewer got it right in the selection of the best/editor's choice). Also, would not mind a pointer to a concise guide on the state of the art in news feeds. I have done a Google search but there are soooooo many hits that I do not know where to start. So, I am asking for some expert help to kickstart the process. Thanks.
