Unison - 1.8.1

After struggling with Thoth for years -- it just would not run properly on OSX versions, and got worse with every version, I decided to try Unison. It was either that or give up usenet altogether. Downloads are easy and complete! It works the way a client should! AND it makes use of nzbs. One click on your nzb and you are good to go.

The only thing I would change is the way that filters are handled. I would like for them to be not just highlighted, but sorted to the top of the page, prioritized. The kill filter did not seem to work at all though.

It's totally worth the price. I just love it.

A free trial that stops working unless you pay for it is not shareware. It's a free trial for COMMERCIAL software.

I have been using this application for nearly two years, and I'm quite happy with it. It looks and feels like a Mac application - in fact it departs from newsreader conventions to conform more with Mac conventions. This leads to my one fault with the application. It is hard to manage filtering rules.

In Unison, all filters are kept in a single list, and new ones are always added at the end of the list, even when I select a rule higher up in the list. To make rules apply in different groups without a common string in their names, you have to write a separate rule for each group or devise a regular expression. I'm used to having an easy way to killfile an author or a subject, and being able to set temporary rules that expire after a period of disuse so they don't slow the filtering process when the troll changes his name or a subject is finished.

The search function in the groups is a particularly nice feature. I would like to see this feature extended to where I could use it on the transfer lists and the rules list.

When I first started using this application, I wrote the developer for help. The response came within a few hours (not days) and was exactly what I needed. Outstanding support.

Another strength is its stability. It handles groups with tens of millions of posts without a problem.

The price is reasonable and I paid it happily, but it's hard to rate it "Excellent" in an area that used to belong to freeware.

For years I used MT-newswatcher for my newsgroup activities, and sometimes spent hours hunting for lost pieces of multi-purpose posts, or wasted time downloading incomplete or corrupted posts that ate up space on my HD while I waited... and waited for the missing pieces which finally never materialized. Although often frustrated, I never realized how much I was missing and how much time I had wasted until I tried Unison.

Unison blew my mind with its superbly designed interface, which opens the first time already pre-configured to give you a highly maximized news reader, which performs like magic compared to earlier newsreaders I've tried.

The single feature which immediately stands out (and alone is worth the price of the program) is Unison's ability to track down all parts of a multi-part post and group them under one heading for a no hassle two clicks download.

On top of that, Unison allows you to filter your groups by selecting Messages, Files, Images or Music. Messages gives you a familiar MT-newswatcher type menu window listing all the messages in the group. The other categories limit the menu listing to whichever category you choose, displaying only headers for messages containing pictures or songs or movies.

The layout of Unison is equally impressive. Simple, easy-to-use button panels are front and center, always in the first place you'd look.

While newswatcher had a simple "Download" box that showed the basic details of each download stream, Unison's "Transfer" window displays each article separately in a rolling list, with all the details of each article (size, type etc) as well as a speed report (kb/sec) and a progress bar.
You can select the number of streams to allow, and the active downloading article streams appear at the top of the Transfer list, which automatically dumps it when it's finished and scrolls up to display the next active one.

In summation, Unison is one the the most elegant and user friendly programs ever designed for the Mac. It is also one of the most powerful, in terms of user effort required to get results and satisfaction. Newsgroup fiends used to MT-newswatcher (or similar programs) who haven't yet tried Unison should do so immediately.

There are a few tiny things I'd like to see. Both of these suggestions are of minimal importance; they would simply help to perfect an already near perfect application.

One would be a "mark as read" button on the group windows, a separate button next to the file display button console. Under the word "search" would be a good spot to place it, not too close to the file display button console, nor close to the edge where it might accidentally be clicked by someone navigating between overlapped windows.

Another would be a way to automatically group the messages displayed in the Transfer window,
so that removing a group would be as easy as it is to add them.

As I said, these suggestions are not critical. They would simply make a very user friendly program into a "lazy friendly" one.

I purchased my Unison license because it was the easiest-to-use program of its kind. I was always unhappy with the extensive delays when searching or refreshing the list for large newsgroups (millions of messages).

I am very happy to say that version 1.8 has greatly improved my user experience with Unison. Searching now takes a few seconds instead of many minutes.

Way to go, Panic!