Forté Agent

Type of Program: Newsreader/Email
Supported Platforms: Windows 9x/2K/NT/XP/Vista
Company Name: Forté
Version: 4.2
Price: $29
Installed Size:

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 If you are new to the internet Forté Agent needs a bit of explaining. First of all a "Newsreader" is not software to read newspapers or magazines with. A Newsreader is used mainly for use on Usenet  newsgroups. For an explanation of Usenet click Here. There are also private newsgroups that organizations use.

Now that we have that out of the way let's get down to looking at Forté Agent. First of all a little history lesson, Agent was developed at the San Diego Supercomputer Center by Mark Sidell and released in 1995. So it is known as the first truly powerful GUI newsreader on the Windows platform.

At that time probably the biggest usage of a newsreader was the posting and reading of text messages. That is where Forté Agent has been known to always outperform any other newsreader in ease of use, threading, posting, really anything that you can name Forté Agent was and is the best at for the use of text newsgroups.

But then along came faster internet speeds and more and more newsgroups were related to binary files. And then along came newsreaders that specialized in binary newsgroups. And for awhile Agent lagged behind on efficient use of binary newsgroups.

But that is history and once again Forté Agent can truly be said to be the best all around newsreader in the world.

There are a few of the new developments that I would like to mention. First of all Desks. You now can setup Agent so that you have some newsgroups in one desk and others in another desk. Let me give you an easy to understand example. I have currently one desk for the Usenet shareware software newsgroups that I use. I have another Desk for the private newsgroups of the Association of Shareware Professionals. I have another Desk for the importing of NZB files that have lists of binary files I download.

Here is another new feature of Forté Agent, Identities. With each message that you send in the new Agent there is now a drop down list where you can pick out which Identity you want to use. I used to have 4 different instances of Agent 3, because I post under different identities, like sometimes I am posting for SharewareJunkies.com, other times for SharewareRadio.com, also for NewestShareware.com. Now all I need is one version of Agent, and one newsreader and it is Forté Agent!

Forté Agent also does a superb job as an email client. Their support is great also.

In conclusion the people at Forté give you a fully featured 30 days to try out Agent 4. So get it, I guarantee you will be pleased as punch!

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Reviewed by Joe Tex

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