NewsMonster News Reader

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Update: Newsmonster is now free, and possibly the Mac version is working.. I haven't tried it yet though.

NewsMonster is a cross-platform news aggregator that runs in a Mozilla Browser. My initial reaction was not at all favorable, but that did change. As usual, most of my problems with NewsMonster were entirely due to my innate lack of patience being aggravated by trying to run something under Virtual PC.

But wait, didn't I say this was cross-platform? Why didn't I just run it on my Mac directly? Well, I intend to. But..

When I visited the web site, I decided I'd just buy the full product rather than downloading the free version. I usually do that if the downloaded version lacks significant features and if the cost isn't unreasonable. As both these were true, I ponied up my $29.95 and was brought to a web page that informed me that the Mac version was not available, but if I filled in my email address, I'd be notified as soon as it is available. I was a little miffed; it's really not nice to take my money and then not give me what I've bought, but I typed in my email and clicked submit. Unfortunately, that link was broken. Feeling a little more upset, I tracked down the Contact address and sent an email explaining what had happened. That was on Sunday, so I really didn't expect an answer. I did want to get a feel for NewsMonster though, so I downloaded the Windows free version. Had I been back in my office, I would have installed it on a real PC, but I'm off on a weeks vacation, so Virtual PC would have to do.

Nothing worked. It was awful. I couldn't understand how this could be so bad and yet apparently be well regarded. Of course, if I had been running on a real PC this wouldn't have happened, because the issue was simply that the Aggregator (which goes out and collects feed data) hadn't even begun to run yet. NewsMonster just wasn't ready for me yet.

Well, it took me the usual far too long to realize that, but after ten or fifteen minutes I went back to look at it again and everything was working, and working very nicely in spite of the obvious handicap of running under Virtual PC on an underpowered iBook.

NewsMonster can have a two or three pane interface, but I preferred the three pane. The free version includes advertising, but it is very unobtrusive - hardly noticeable at all. NewMonster can archive content (off by default) and can reformat pages to text only. The Aggregator can be set to run automatically, or you can refresh specific sites on demand. As do many readers, it came with a good selection of built-in sites. There's a useful search tool that will find sites and articles containing your search terms. The paid version has more capabilities, but I can't explore those yet.

I do have a gripe: it's now Friday, and I still have had no response to my email. My PayPal payment went through, but I don't have my Mac NewsMonster or any acknowledgement of my order and payment. That's not right. However, I just checked the site again and realized I may have sent my email to the wrong address. I just sent it again now.

But NewsMonster itself, even in the free version, is fine and the paid version looks to have some very interesting features which I'll be sure to look into once I actually have it.

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