We really enjoyed making this app and providing it to you. We hope it serves you well into the future! But if major problems arise in the future, we will definitely check them out — some of us still use Unison too! This is disappointing news. Too bad, I was hoping a basic way to store messages archive them into personal folders.
Now what? Yeah… Windows, ouch :- Very disappointed… Especially after being told that it was still under development. All good things…. Thanks for keeping the Unison Access service. It can easily saturate a 1Gb path to Phoenix from the east coast. Well, installed the new version and also redownloaded all headers form the main server but not from the other ones embarcadero and corel , they all remain grey.
Too bad, but totally understood. Very sad to hear this. The new version runs great on my iMac and Yosemite. I hope it will be many years before Unison starts coughing up blood. God, this sucks! Hey Panic: thanks for 10 great years with Unison. And thanks for all the other great apps you make. Sad about this but glad the app exists, and has for so long.
Would have been nice to see it get a Yosemite-style icon in its last update. Sad to see Unison go but it would be great to see a 2. Think of it as a new pair of comfy slippers to impress the existing care home residents. Version 2. I tried reinstalling the previous version, but it says I only have 6 days left to use it, so I guess the 2. Thanks for a great product, hate to see it go. This is a real bummer. I, too, have been a long time Unison user.
Sad to see it go. If not open source, how about having another developer pick it up? I would if I had the time and knowledge. Thanks for all these years with Unison! It was and will be the best newsreader for mac users. I will continue to use it as will be compatible with Mac OS X at the next years. I stopped using it years ago, but appreciated it when I did.
How you are handling this really has class. II think it would be a good idea to liberate Unison v1. It is the work horse of the family, and the only bug free one. Download older Unison builds here. Sad news for users, but probably great for Panic Inc. When you gotta move on, you gotta move on…. Thank you for the best Usenet app while it lasted!! Cabel, are you receiving the crash reports from the app itself?
Sad news indeed: Unison has been part of my daily workflow since , one of my first stops every morning. This is a great disappointment.
Is v2. Sad to see it go especially with 2. Wish there was a little bit more dev time to get the couple issues it has with multi connection downloads fixed and the crashes. Cabel, let me know if you do decide to fix anything and need a hand. Wow, pretty good. Almost and something finally broke my Unison 2.
They go to the queue and must be manually started part by part. Thanks for your work on this over the years — happy user since Sorry to see it go, but I understand the reason totally. Guess what, the problem of the Unison 2. This unsupported software is fully functional again! But thanks Cabel and company for bringing it to us in the first place. Can anyone recommend a replacement? OK to email me direct. Really sorry to see Unison go, I really love that app.
What makes the goodbye bitterer yet: every time I open Unison 2. Is there a way to somehow switch back to the old download method? Thx for this milestone of Usenet software.
I used Unison since and it found its place in my virtual machine with OS Best NNTP news browser and downloader ever written! There is no competition from either the Windows or Linux space that is as user-friendly as Unison. It was slow as heck before the 2.
But I mainly use it for text so not a big deal for me. Panic have some nice apps they are a very slick outfit I would give you a 5 if you can stop it beach balling me so often! Unison 2 is so buggy that 1. UI elements won't respond and sometimes lock up, Menus, main interface deleting messages in a view won't clear the messages correctly, active downloads won't let you clear them if you cancel them.
Before this version everything worked great. Please fix it. If you need to actually browse or search through newsgroups as opposed to simply downloading massive queues of NZB files , there aren't many options on the Mac, and the interface was decent.
The biggest problems with the first version which was around for about 5 years, I think! Transmit isn't the fastest FTP client, either, but it is at least reliable and has a decent interface, so many of us use it. Panic's developers seems to simply not be very good at data transfer. Unison 2, unfortunately, is not much of an upgrade after such a long wait.
It is faster, but still nowhere near as fast as most any other contemporary newsgroup downloader. The interface is still OK, but it is nowhere near as usable as the guys at Panic seem to think it is. For example, the "Transfers" section, which shows current transfers and allows you to rearrange or remove them, is at the bottom of a scrolling sidebar.
At the top of the scrolling sidebar is the Newsgroups section. So if you have more than a few newsgroups, it is very likely that the transfers section will simply scroll off the bottom of your screen, and you'll have no idea how to adjust downloads. It would make far more sense to have the transfers section be pinned similar to the "activity" panel at the bottom of the sidebar in Mail. An even more exciting UI challenge is that if you go to the "Window" menu looking for a downloads window as you did in Unison 1 , you'll find the Activity window that looks like it should be managing downloads, but does not enable you to interact in any way with the progress it displays.
Mail has a similar separate activity window showing individual operations, but it, like a well-designed program, has a cancel button next to every progress bar. The truly spectacular failure of Unison 2, though, is the complete inability of the program to mark messages as read and hide them.
A newsreader without the capacity to mark messages as read is like a toilet that can't flush. Newsgroups get thousands of messages a day, every day, yet Unison 2 has screwed up the most fundamental way of managing that flow.
The program has a menu item and a toolbar icon for "Mark as read" and "Mark All Read", but they do, quite literally, nothing. There is another menu option and toolbar button to "Hide Read", but it, too, does absolutely nothing. The only way to keep from having 8 million messages in every newsgroup window is to delete them all after you've caught up. Hope you don't ever need to search for something you read yesterday! This has been broken since Unison 2. I really don't think anyone at Panic gives a damn about this program.
Certainly for the premium price they charge, I would expect at least basic functionality to work. The good news is it doesn't seem to stall or crash as much as Unison 1.
It's a shame that is really the best thing I can say about this upgrade, the guys at Panic should be embarrassed. The older version 1. What i look for in a usenet reader is speed downloading headers, sorting, searching , reliability downloads download as expecting , and ease of use intuitive interface. Here is how Unison rates on each one.
It is absolutely staggering. Nearly unuseable. Let me illustrated. I frequent both tech groups as well as some binary groups. Since unison was a fresh install on this particular mac book pro - I had to redownload all headers. Unisons default "max headers" size was very small and now I know why. I bumped it up as high as it would go to get all of my headers - and tried to reload.
I got a message at the bottom that said "Fetching" And waited. Of course it was trying to catch up on 4 binary groups all at the same time so I would expect some latency. I left it for 3 hours Just for comparision the exact same four groups had all their headers downloaded in 30 seconds with MT news watcher not a fair comparison because MT news watcher is a dinosaur.
That's right, the dinosaur was about a billion times faster. In the end I forced quit, restarted about 10 times, and then decided to diable the network, let it time out, then go into preferences and reset the max headers to "baby chunk" size.
But sometimes downloads get "stuck" in the queue and never go away. You have to manually delete them using the "delete" button. Not good. The "search" is weak because it generates a barely useable web page that doesn't really tell you anything. It is simple a little too simple and clean. And I really like hate the popups that show you when each download is complete. All in all - this version of Unison would probably be good for non-serious usenet users who have no intention of really using usenet to it's fullest.
The absolutely abhorent performance leaves me still searching for a better reader. Oh - and of note - I uninstalled the new version of unison and now use VMWare Fusion to run windows 7 and a different reader that I won't mention here.
Nice looking app, Panic. Next time make it work. For the first time in years I'm looking for a different newsreader. Let me know when 2. Thanks 3 0 Reply Bloobie Mar 23 2. There were some minor bugs with the initial 2. Still needs the ability to "watch" a folder for NZB files. Bit overpriced for a Usenet client, though. I like the UnRAR built-in feature, it save me a lot of time when downloading files. Sometimes manual processing of the par set functions, most of the times it does not.
Apparently Unison 2 cleanses some par files from the set. It bothers me greatly to dl multiple Gb of data junk. Then new DL enginge was touted as the main feature of the 2. My Unison 1 bookmarks where not imported. I have tried 2. Unison 2 still does not handle any kind of interruption in the connection to the news server gracefully at all. It simply stops doing what it should be doing and requires a restart to get it going again. For me this is a very significant short coming because I must rely on a mobile broadband connection from a flaky service provider which frequently drops the connection.
This was really the only fault I found with Unison 1 and the one thing I was hoping would be corrected in version 2. It is actually a little worse in Unison 2 because the groups freeze and can't be closed and reopened independently when frozen to get them loading headers again.
I also get needless error messages from time to time that it has failed to establish an SSL connection. That is normal, the connection is flaky, it should just try again and I don't want to know about it. I also find that it keeps downloading the headers all again with every new version.
Is this really necessary when going from version 1 to version 2? Downloading headers takes days! I understand it is doing that because I deleted the plist file, but is that behavior necessary?
The header data is not deleted, it is all sitting right where it should be waiting to be read. In those 6 days I did nothing but download headers, then got the 15 min time out when I tried to actually use it to download something I wanted. I found that the only support from Panic available is by email. I sent them an email regarding the issues mentioned above and have not received a reply from them in well over a week now.
I also found these issues: - The only way I found to organize groups already marked as favorites into folders was to drag them.
I found this can sometimes cause the program to crash possibly when dragging in the first group with the folder closed. When organizing the folders it is not possible to drop a folder between other folders, folders can only be dropped at the bottom, between groups, or into other folders. If not careful folders and all the groups inside of them can be accidentally dropped off the edge of the window and instantly removed from the favorites list.
I didn't like it at all. Behavior with 2. I am using SSL and connections constantly get stuck and the only way to get them going again is to quit and restart Unison. Or does this happen with the error message also displayed?
If so, could the error include the word "Retrying"? Note that the list of problems probably does not end here because it was not possible to fully test this software.
There is a 6 day trial after which it will only run for 15 min. Over a decade ago I was using Xnews and it not only handled that as I recall, it could also be set up to treat as spam messages that where cross posted to too many groups, an essential feature IMO. After paying for it, I discover that it has a very nasty bug where it freezes up my Mac Pro for approx 30 seconds and then the entire left sidebar becomes a mess of corrupted graphics, and the only way to see my newsgroups listed properly if to relaunch Unison.
Another thing this is lacking in is automatically marking cross-posts to other newsgroups as read. Also, when you want to read more posts, it shouldn't load headers for articles you have already read. Downloader hardly works. At least reading is good. NZBvortex is free and works so much better. If you have 30 bucks to spare better donate to NZBvortex. I purchased 2. About a year ago, I started having major problems with one of their releases, and even after 2 was released, the problem follows it.
It's simply that downloads stall. All the time. I used to be able to clear all the caches, and that would seem to help a lot, but you no longer have that option with 2.
You can clear the caches and wipe out everything including the headers in a group that you have in your sidebar, but if you happen to get a nzb from another source, how are you suppose to clear that groups cache??
I actually wrote several times with the developer, all to no avail and pretty much a "We've never seen that problem, so it doesn't exist" attitude. Now with the 2. Not for me, unfortunately. Also, it runs the pars, but doesn't seem to fix the files and re-run the extract. But then it deletes the par files! So I have to re-download the par files, run the par myself to fix the files and extract the download.
Fix the stalling 1. Let me clear the caches myself across all the groups 2. Lastly take a look again at the extraction portion of the app, and it will be a really classy A1 program. I know it's not a big money-maker, but there are those that still like using Usenet. As far as the rest of 2. It makes reading groups so much nicer. Yes, people still use the Usenet for reading! Turns out that for me, at least 2. Worse than any of the other shortcomings is version 2's startup speed: I have three!
Previous versions were slow to load large groups, too, but with those the user had control over when these waits would occur - posts would not load from Unison's DB until the respective group window was opened. This new terrible behavior alone is reason enough to save your money and stick with 1. Now I would also like a Prefs setting or some such to switch off this rather annoying Smart Downloading behaviour.
I have to open the disclorue triangle every time to check what's included and what not. Yes, it's probably me, but I really hate the app deciding for me what to download. Same reason as why I won't buy an automatic car. I drive it so I decide when it changes gear and not the other way around. Cache problems like stated in the FAQ aren't really a users concern, are they? Please keep up the good work Panic, despite my perhaps sometimes harsh comments. I know you're trying your upmost is that a word in English?
I am using a 30 inch Cinema Display and the type in the headings is way to small. Only the message body can be enlarged. I made this request back in version 2. This seems like a reasonable request and core functionality of the program I have to go in manually and separately DL all the extra par files if parts are missing from a bunch of rars.
It includes the 1st. While you can't mark binary content as "read," you can now "delete" files you don't want to see anymore. This will prevent them from loading again, and also helps keep the cache databases manageable, making Unison run even faster.
That said, we're still considering the issue! I am used to marking threads READ in newsgroup readers. Back to Unison version 1. Unison just released version 2. Tried some other features and most things look good now! Have to say, in despite of my previous comment, the program now fits the profile of a program that's worth to sell.
If panic next time launches a program, launch it when it's ready, like it seems to be now! Less criticism and good reviews will be your share!! Panic claims to solve several bugs but in reality they didn't Fact is they knew that those bugs were not solved and yet they say they are solved in their change log!
Seems they try to limit the damage from the poor reviews on several review sites. Particularly the uploadbug has not been repaired at all!! Also the program suddenly stops downloading once in a while, can't connect to your newsserver anymore and asking you if your connection is OK.
Lots of other unexpected behavior. Support is poor, only thing they reply is the word " interesting" whenever I file my bugs to them. They however don't do nothing to solve them and they finally not even answering my emails anymore. I suggest anyone not to buy this software but test it for a long period before you spent any money on it. When it's working, your lucky, when it's buggy which it probably will be , deinstall and look for other alternatives.
It just isn't worth you money! Wish I could get my money back! Panic, when you sell people programs for money, give them something good that works.
This software is very poor, looks nice but is instable like an alpha version!!! I love the new interface of Unison and most of the new features Unison 2. The only thing I really regret is that you can't no more mark files as read or unread. Same issue someone posted on Versiontracker. Reply 1 Comments Julsa1 Jan 21 2. Still a bug in the upload function, this one hasn't been fixed like you stated in the releasenotes of the version 2.
A lot other issues as well! Nice software if it's working but if some crusial functions don't work properly it isn't even worth one dollar!!! The main issue by miles has not been addressed, meaning files can still not be marked Read or Unread. As to the why of this major issue? Well, IMNSHO Unison has problems parsing large amounts of headers and therefore the developers ditched this functionality for files in an effort to more or less force users to delete a lot of stuff so the app functions better cuz of smaller caches.
Things like this have happened before and will happen again. In this particular case a developer who, because of techinical difficulties, thinks he can and should decide how Usenet should be used by his clients.
Sorry, but Usenet is Usenet and for hardcore long time users that simply means keeping every header in frequented groups until it expires on server. Standard practise. Unless the developer acknowledges this and takes action accordingly Unison 2 will never become a prime Usenet client but remain a marginal uncustomisable glorified toy.
Some fellow commentators will probably not agree with me and of course that's fine, but this is how yours truly sees it. Next comment, please The serial numbers Panic sent to some customers are invalid, I emailed their support and got no answer since then Customers are left in the dust. First email was last week, right after launch of version 2. No response yet, understandable, you people are very busy I guess. That's exactly my point. How is it possible that so many people are complaining about your new version of Unison?
Programmers shouldn't release crappy beta programs and let people pay good money for it. I'm not a beta tester but a paying costumer, I choose to be!!!!
For several days now i'm unable to post anything because your program crashes and crashes There's a lot of other unexpected behavior and it never should be released to the public anyway!! Sadly 'm forced to use other programs who will do the trick, unison 2. Lost my money, what a shame! People who used unison upgraded without trying the trial because they trusted the program, just like I did!
Therefore a nasty surprise!!! It's a completely waste of good money and my advise to everyone is, wait until the program is more stable or use something else!!! Mac is a very stable computer and it can certainly do without crappy programs who make it look like windows!!! Drop the Major release label here and call it what it really should be, a public beta. Then refine what you have based on feedback from users. Then release a proper Major release. Just a suggestion. This is a common problem in many software created in the USA, and that could explain why I am able to read in some groups like rec.
And hopefully fix your bugs! Reply Earl49 Jan 10 2. I see promise here but as a major upgrade this app falls flat on its face. Stability is a major problem and not being able to mark files read is a huge pain! What happened to the header count next to the group I miss it. Unison 1. I finally removed it completely.
I paid for the upgrade but It's back to 1. It's nice, but I have some comments : - the importer still does not work properly. If you added your favorite groups as favorites, it's good. History already prove that programmers should only program and stay away from design and usability questions, and Unison is no exception. After that it's impossible to upload Files again. Select "upload" and the program freezes. Only way to quit program is a forced stop.
It's as if something jams after the first upload of files Dont know if i'm the only one, anyone else with same problem???? Reply 2 Comments Demarchi Jan 9 2. Besides that I don't like the black background on the new interface when expanding the file list tree.
White on black, especially on a MacBook monitor, is not easy to read. Would it be possible to have an option to stick to the old interface or change the background to a lighter shade of grey so it will still be evident that one is reading and expanded tree?
For me, wanting only a nice functional newsreader, this update is great and now has many functions that I have not seen before nor have been able to find in any other Mac program. Having now paid for the update, I have few complaints But that aside, I'm quite happy with this update!
It is absolutely annoying that I can not mark files as read anymore. Why not? It worked until 1. Only messages can be marked as read - but if you are in the "All" section this is absolutely pointless.
The "Lastest downloads" separator is no solution to that. And the "delete" button also not. I also noticed that loading new headers is also not working properly. I've not selected "load newsgroup on startup" - but as soon as the newsgroup or even the whole favorites folder I made was selected on last quit, they are loaded at next start no matter if this option is selected or not.
Bad thing. And why can't I enter the "Header Load Count" for each group separately? I hope there will be a update which fixes all these annoying stuff very soon! A return of the available header count next to the group name wouldn't hurt much either. But then, if the developers make this version usable for me by changing the above I might give them a try.
I have been in touch with the developers and they are aware of it, but no indication of when it will be fixed. My verdict: Stick with 1. Regardless of the claim that it was 'rebuilt from the ground up', perhaps they should have stuck with what worked.
If you have a large library of headers, they will be wiped. All you'll see are NULL folders. No matter what you do, you are working with all the headers in a particular group. This means that if you have a group with 7. You cannot just work with unread stuff here.
The selection you make at the bottom of the screen is global, and you have to remember to switch back and forth depending on whether it's a file or message group. Headbangingly, beach-balling slow. So, should you buy it? Definitely not. It looks like the developers really think that UI stuff is everything, while back-end effectiveness is a byproduct.
I'm disappointed in Panic--especially given the time it took to get an update. Mac users effectively don't have a good newsreader anymore. Horrible update Still not possible to mark a whole group as marked.
Maybe they needed the money so badly, there was no time tp properly test Still in love with Thoth.. I waited and waited and waited and waited for an update and I'm not one little bit disappointed. Dave, thank you! A very clean and Mac-like app as usual from the Panic guys..
The fact that it now does everything from searching to unpacking, is awesome. Downloaded, unpacked and trashed the waste for me. UI is great and love the info for speed, time remaining, progress, etc.
It's obvious they've spent quite a bit of time gettin' v2 ready, it really shows once you start using it. It's been a long time between drinks and like others, hope it's here to stay. Nice one. I'll not be paying to update this app until there is a proper version which correctly loads all preferences from the 1. Needs bug fixes and less superfluous eyecandy. It's a newsreader not Delicious Library.
Snow Leopard The best feature is that it does not use the old database. Downgrade to 1. Clean UI and true to Panic's quality and style. Thanks especially to DAVE for doing this project solo! The last major update was version 1. Given that the present program works fine, I think this will be one of those "upgrade when I get my tax refund" type upgrades.
To summarise: I have really enjoyed Unison over the years and found to be well worth the money, but I really don't want to pay to upgrade this, wait several years for an update, then find that they want me to pay again for 3. A little more "developer presence" would reassure me a lot. Discover New Mac Apps. Save money with MacUpdate Shop. Sign in Create account.
Today's deals. Best Apps. Download 10 MB. Download without scan. Stay safe with. Home Internet Utilities Newsreaders Unison. Unison for Mac 2. Follow this app Developer website. Try our new feature and write a detailed review about Unison. Write review. Write your thoughts in our old-fashioned comment. MacUpdate Comment Policy. Email me when someone replies to this comment. Simon Mar 16 Really love Unison, but it crashes a lot with the newer Mac OS operating systems.
Noraa Aug 29 Anyone know how to get the 2. Noraa Jan 6 I like some of the changes made to how items are downloaded, and of course it's now free, but it's buggy as hell. Phatkrome Dec 31 Anyone else having issues with 2. MacDefender Dec 29 Saintfu Dec 18 This version is very crashy. Frenkieboy Nov 30 Deltaman Nov 15 Yeah, something def. Spudboy Nov 14 Kavod Nov 12 Loses all headers, renames files it downloads to random names, downloads them to random folders, far files are then broken, no attempt to post process the far files.
RustyIron Nov 9 Quiiick Nov 8 The AppStore version of Unison is still at version 2. Andrewm8 Nov 8 The best newsreader for mac Quiiick Nov 7 Having a machine that's stuck using PaulR Feb 12 I wanted this to be my Mac alternative to NewsLeecher. Jazzyguy Dec 5 Xnntp is a good choice but it doesn't to pictures too well but it is great for text and it is free! Andrewm8 Nov 13 Balanchine Jan 14 Jazzyguy Dec 1 Very good version.
Spudboy Nov 30
