yDecode

Newsgroups and other Usenet providers are great source of free content ranging from pictures, audio files, videos, all the way to e-books and software, but the fact that this content usually comes in the form of yEnc files might make it frustratingly difficult for some users to get ahold of them using basic news readers such as Thunderbird, Windows Live Mail, or even Outlook Express.

yEnc is a popular newsgroup encoding format that optimizes up to 30% of the redundant data allowing for easier manipulation and faster download times. In short, yEnc makes files download much faster, it allows users to use less disk space, and allows for many more files to be stored on servers.

If you happen to visit newsgroups on a daily basis, then you will surely love yDecode, a specialized piece of software designed to decode yEnc messages quickly (and without user intervention) directly into your favorite newsreader.

Once installed, yDecode acts as an intermediary between the newsgroup servers and your favorite newsgroup reader. To help even the most novice of users get started, yDecode helps you connect to the server of the newsgroup directly thanks to a step-by-step wizard.

One of the best aspects of yDecode is the fact that it can also work as a proxy, allowing you to never actually care about the encoding format in which the actual posts (from the newsgroups) may be, as it automatically decodes yEnc into a series of common formats.

Once properly configured, regardless of talking about single part of multipart yEnc messages, yDecode can decode all of them without user intervention. Better yet, it can automatically save all the yEnc messages automatically into a folder or at a destination of your choice.

The fact that yDecode is designed to work with up to 10 servers at a time is also a very praiseworthy aspect of the app. The app’s GUI can be described as pragmatic and a bit outdated, but thanks to its compact size and well-designed structure, it should not be a hindrance even for beginners.

YDecode is a very efficient piece of software that does all of the tasks mentioned above without ever requiring too much attention on your part. Once configured, it’s more than capable of taking care of everything on its own, it decodes yEnc messages quickly, it puts next to not strain on your computer, and, best of all, it works with all the most popular newsreaders.