Forté Agent

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Forté Agent

Forté Agent
Developer:	Forté Inc.
Latest release:	4.2.32.1170 / January 30, 2007
OS:	Windows
Use:	News client
License:	Shareware
Website:	Forté Inc.

Forté Agent is an email and news client used on the Windows operating system. Initially popular in the mid-1990s, Forté created the first truly powerful GUI newsreader on the Windows platform. However, it suffered a wane in popularity due to an increasing amount of competitors, particularly Microsoft Windows-bundled Outlook Express and more specialized clients like Microplanet Gravity. A scaled down free version, called Free Agent, has traditionally been available alongside the full-featured agent. The last version of Free Agent was 3.3 and was discontinued in 2006 with the release of Agent 4.

Agent was developed at the San Diego Supercomputer Center by Mark Sidell and released in 1995. Forté was acquired by Genesys (now Alcatel) in 1997, which in turn sold Forté's Consumer Software group in 2000 to Charles Dazler Knuff, one of the original developers. During this time development slowed down considerably, but important features such as yEnc support were added, and Agent retained much of its userbase.