You may close the application now or continue on to the discussion of below on Using NewsWatcher. The following description is intended to provide an overview of the news reading process, breaking it down into a few simple steps and looking at the means to perform those steps in NewsWatcher. If you intend to follow the discussion below in your copy of NewsWatcher, you will need to be connected to the Internet. Although the number of groups varies in time as new groups are added and old ones removed, the total number is safely over 35,000. Each group is called a newsgroup.
Discussions take the form of articles and responses to articles.
On any given day, a particular newsgroup might have anywhere from none to a couple thousands of articles posted to it. As the total number of newsgroups is so large and the volume of articles so heavy, you will want to restrict the number of newsgroups you actively follow. Reducing the number of newsgroups you follow is done through subscribing to a subset of the total number of newsgroups available. This will add is to window where your subscribed groups are listed. Once you have built a subscribed list of newsgroups, close the Full Group List window and go to your subscribed list.