Web-based newsreading software

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- MPNews by Mutant Penguin is a news server allowing you to create your own groups for the internet or your intranet. Great for technical support, organizations, clubs, etc. Supports nntp or web-based newsreading.
- Newsgroups for Webmasters lets you avoid running your own software to provide news to your web site visitors. It is a service by Newsguy that offers webmasters an easy and inexpensive way to bring 30,000 high-traffic discussion groups to their websites.
Servers/Gateways/archival software: (you might also check to see if your nntp server software comes with a web gateway module included or extra -- let me know if it isn't listed here!)
Cross-platform: (scroll down for Perl, PHP, Python)
- Apache::NNTPGateway "This module implements a per group interface to NNTP (Usenet)
News-Groups, it allow users to list, read, post, followup ... articles
in a given newsgroup/newsserver depending of configuration. This is
not a replacement for a real powerful newsreader client but just
pretend to be a simple, useful mapping of some news articles into a
web space."
- OzWay (Win32, RedHat or FreeBSD), from Oz Insight, is a WYSIWYG News2Web gateway that displays thumbnails of images attached to articles before downloading on the users own browser. It works as a client to any NNTP compliant news server and does not interfere with normal server operations. Articles retrieved from the server are stored in the Gateway cache for ongoing re-use, saving traffic and load on the news server. It is designed to make the Usenet easy and attractive to users, help ISPs switch at least some of their "binary fans" from their external Web link to their news server and thus save on external bandwidth.
- Conversant by Macrobyte Resources is a community/site-building package. Subscribers can read or post to discussions via news, e-mail, or web. Server runs on Mac or Windows.
- DBabble by NetWin Ltd. is Chat and Discussion Server, which allows users to send instant messages, have private conversations, create and participate in private or public chat rooms and discussions. Communication with the server is done either using a web browser, or a client for Windows 95/98/2000/NT, but the server runs on Windows, Unix, Linux. Users can also interact with other users on remote servers, and participate in remote chat rooms and discussions. Discussions and optionally be linked to external usenet (NNTP) groups.
- LeechGuy source. "The full source code of LeechGuy is not available. The part that does the decoding of the html article list is available though" LeechGuy downloads from Newsguy's Direct Read News web interface or Easynews usenet2web interface.
- WebNEWS by NetWin Ltd. works with any standard NNTP server. (DnewsWeb is their web module for DNews). Mac OS X, Win, Unix/Linux.
- ONE Webtop by Sun is a server/browser-based version of their StarOffice suite, which includes word processing, spreadsheet, mail, news, etc. Does anyone know if this will include mail/news? (Unix, Linux, Windows)
Unix/Linux:
- Direct Read News lets Usenet users read, post, and decode articles within newsgroups with a standard web browser. This is not a news database or archive, but real time access to Usenet. For use with standard nntp servers, especially INN, bCandid's Typhoon and Breeze products, and Microsoft Exchange servers. Available in Intel/Linux, Intel/BSD and SPARC/Solaris versions.
- Hypernews by Ray Moody. "A News to HTML conversion utility. It takes a newsgroup file and runs a program to create and display a list of newgroups. It can be run as a chron job and when done so it will monitor news as it arrives."
- PicMonger (sourceforge) for Linux "PicMonger is an NNTP client that automagically scans a specified Usenet newsgroup for either UUEncoded or MIME (base64) binaries, downloads them, and decodes them. It will also create a series of linked HTML thumbnail pages for previewing purposes."
- snntpbatch, "a command line based NNTP (newsgroups) client. It is mainly intended for automatic download of images by use of a filter language. Nevertheless it also downloads the message texts and converts them to HTML code which includes the downloaded images. Also, it is capable of automatically posting sets of images to the newsgroups."
- W3News by Kasper Peeters "is a flexible CGI tool that implements a usenet newsreader through html pages. It connects directly to NNTP servers. The layout of the w3news generated pages is configurable through template html pages. Restricted newsgroups, only accessible through passwords, are possible."
- we:search "is a specialized news/mail search engine designed to be able to handle tens of millions of messages. It can add new messages to its index in real time, which makes it ideal for providing up-to-the second search results for a news spool. If you have a large data set, you'll need much disk and RAM for we:search to be able to give satisfactory results."
Windows:
- MPNews by Mutant Penguin is a news server allowing you to create your own groups for the internet or your intranet. Great for technical support, organizations, clubs, etc. Supports nntp or web-based newsreading.
- Nographer by Andy Green makes USENET into a website using your web browser (it acts as a gateway; it acts as a web server to your browser, and as a client to your news host). Pictures show inline, audio and movies as links. Multipart binaries are a single click. Download/upload queue, threading, 1MB download. Free Open Source (GPL) software.
Java:
- NewsBro 2.2 by Michael Bergknoff. "NewsBro is a web based application providing Usenet news service.
It supports multiple users accessing multiple news groups on multiple
news servers. User profiles are maintained in order to allow for
individual news reading preferences.
NewsBro is implemented as a Java program and requires the Java
Runtime Environment (JRE) or Java Development Kit (JDK) to be
installed on the server system running NewsBro.
Users reading news do not require any special software other than a
standard web browser.
On the desktop, NewsBro replaces special purpose newsreader software with the
web browser."
- Spaniel Message Board works with their News Server product to provide web-based access to the private groups which the news server makes available via nntp access.
- Zeno by Autonomous intelligent Systems (AiS) "is a mediation system, i.e. a discussion forum with special support for deliberation, the process of discussing, arguing and negotiating issues of practical importance. Zeno provides particular support to the trusted third parties responsible for moderating these kinds discussions. The Zeno server is a Java application for the World Wide Web which enables and facilitates moderated issue-based discussion forums in a secure environment. Zeno discussion forums are well integrated with a workspace facility for sharing classified documents." Supports web and nntp access to discussions. Current version 1.9 can be hosted on their machines. Version 2.0 will be available for download under GNU.
Perl:
- aNews by Arun Singhal supports reading and posting.
- HURL: The Hypertext Usenet Reader & Linker by Gerald Oskoboiny provides a searchable Web interface to Usenet news or mailing list archives.
- Monorail "is an integrated web-based interface to services such as email and newsgroups, with additional services such as an address book and planner."
Newsan "is a web based newsreader aimed at binary up and downloads."
- news2html (freshmeat) "is a program that converts news articles in a single directory into HTML formatted files. After it has converted all the files it will create an index page for easy access on a website to each article."
- News::Gateway is a perl module by Russ Allbery. "News::Gateway is a general toolkit for mail to news and news to mail gatewaying, robomoderation, and human moderation support. It's a Perl module designed to be as extensible and general as possible, and to provide a framework and a way of collecting previous work so that each person who wants to do things like the above doesn't have to reinvent the wheel."
- Readnews by Rod Clark
- Usenet-Web by Benjamin "Snowhare" Franz (requires "A local Usenet news spool - NNTP is not directly supported at this time.")
- UsenetWeb (sourceforge) allows reading (recent and archives) and posting. working demo at Usenet4free
- WebBBS NNTP Poster for WebBBS
- WebNews, Maintained by Brian R. Gaeke, "is a CGI-based NNTP newsreader written in Perl, designed for ease of use (minimal configuration required) and multiple concurrent user access."
- WebNNTP "will, eventually, allow the user to read news, in different newsgroups, and post followups (no new article sending is planned yet)."
- Tools meant for mailboxes, and thus will work on newsgroups in that format as well:
- Hypermail converts unix mailbox formats to HTML, and is handy for archiving mailing lists to the web. See What is Hypermail for more information.
- MHonArc is an email to HTML conversion tool, handy for putting mailing list archives on the web. Has links to web scripts that will let you search the MHonArc produced archives.
PHP:
- MyNewsGroups :) is a USENET news client, based totally on a web interface, written in PHP4. It's backended with a MySQL database, which allows us to develop useful tools such as search engines, SPAM filters, subscriptions, stats, and much more.
- myPHPUsenet (author's site)
- NewsPortal by Florian Amrhein is a PHP based gateway.
- NewsReader (info page)
- PHPGroupware is a multi-user web-based groupware suite written in PHP.
It provides calendar, todo-list, addressbook, email, and a news reader.
It also provides an API for developing additional applications. (sourceforge project)
- Twig does IMAP and newsgroups.
- vBulletin
(vbulletin.org has some nntp gateways -- search on nntp on that site)
Python:
- Mailman is a mailing list server, but includes both web archival and mail-to-news gateway, so it *should* work for web-based news, at least for reading, but also for posting if you add some code? (Please confirm both of these statements if you have had success doing so.)
- MeoWWW! by The Usenet Cabal is in beta. Runs on Python. Meant for Unix/Apache, but is adaptable.
- newsic by Jeffery M. Griffith "is a program that creates a streaming [web] gateway to mp3s on the alt.binaries newsgroups."
- Newslist by Quentin Stafford-Fraser "is a program which creates a hierarchy of [web] pages for you based on the groups available from YOUR server." (It does not enable web-based reading, just creates news urls for the full group list in a hierarchial manner).
Utilities:
- Spellchecker.net provides tools for web-based systems to allow users to spellcheck their work.
- WebStump is a graphical interface for the Stump moderation utility. Can also handle mailing lists.
Discussion board and/or discussion list software that support nntp:
- bbBoardv2 is forum software that allows web or nntp access
- GlobalChat Boards produces discussion boards accessible by web, nntp, or e-mail. Also works with their web-chat product GlobalRooms -- chat transcripts can be archived onto boards.
- JiveForums for Win, Mac, or Unix is Java-based. and "is a powerful, open-architecture, customizable community product that supports dynamic, threaded discussions on websites." All versions have an e-mail gateway, and the enterprise and expert versions allow nntp posting/reading.
- KOM2000 is a web-based discussion forum that also provides nntp access.
- Lyris ListManager
by Lyris Technologies, Inc. The Multiview module makes it so that the mailing lists can be read and posted to via newsreading software.
- WebBoard by Akiva for Windows does web boards and mailing lists. Users can read/post via nntp if they wish. (purchase)
- WebCrossing is a "community" package, meaning it provides a web site and communication packages for virtual communities. Web, Webmail, POP3/IMAP/SMTP, web-based and NNTP forums, and can run mailing lists.
- Forum News Gateway from the Math Forum is no longer supported. Their new tool is Epigone, which does newsgroups, mailing lists, and web discussions. Interested groups of mathematicians or mathematics educators may contact them directly for consideration of Forum discussion group software use and hosting. Interested groups of stakeholders (of WebCT) in other academic fields may contact help@webct.com
Hosted solutions:
- WebBoard:
- WebCrossing sells their software or can host it for you. (web/mail/nntp access)
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