We’ve been fans of NewsLeecher for a long time. The newsreader and SuperSearch feature are a pleasure to use. In recent months though development slowed and people started questioning whether or not they were continuing to innovate the client. The answer came this month with a message from NL’s developer along with a number of enhancements and the release of NewsLeecher V4.0 final promised for next week.
NewsLeecher V4.0 beta 21, 22 and 23 have all been released this month. Along with an announcement that SuperSearch has been upgraded to support 1,000 days of search retention. With the V4.0 final release promised for this coming week.
Back to the question of why the NewsLeecher V4.0 final was delayed and whether or not the Usenet client is being actively developed. Here’s the answer direct from the architect of NL:
“As you have probably noticed, it has been quite a while since the previous NewsLeecher release. The reason is, that I ( the only developer in the NewsLeecher project ) have been deeply involved in some other projects lately, which have absorbed all my time. While I’m still very much involved in those projects, I will get (take) more time for NewsLeecher looking forward. So expect more frequent releases from now on. NewsLeecher is alive and will be so for a long time to come”
We’re happy to see NewsLeecher being actively developed and look forward to next week’s release. While there are some fine alternatives out there we still use and enjoy NewsLeecher on a regular basis and look forward to future releases in the years to come. If you haven’t tried NewsLeecher yet they offer a 14 day free trial. We recommend you download V4.0 beta 23. If you need help getting started we offer a set of NewsLeecher setup guides specific to each Usenet provider.