This Desktop application (Windows XP and later) allows the user to access the StackExchange Forums for reading and writing. It provides a local NNTP Server which can be accessed from any NNTP Client (like Thunderbrid or others). You can create your own newsgroups by specifying any Tags you want.
The installation requires only .NET Framework 4.0, which will be downloaded during the setup process, if it is not yet installed.
You must first create newsgroups which you want to see in your newsreader. Therefor you need to specify "tags" you want to receive for a given newsgroup. If you start the bridge for the first time, the "Manage newsgroups dialog" will automatically appear.
Here you can create your own newsgroups. You need to give them a name and assign them a StackExchange-Site and assign some tags from this site.
After you have pressed Accept or Save then all articles for the given tags form the site will be downloaded.
The first download of several thousend artciles might take several hours! To restrict the number of downloaded articles you can change this in the "Advanced options" (LimitArticleCountOfNewGroups). Default is "0" which means: Download all. You can also change this value if the download is already active.
The local storage file is places in "%AppData%\Community\StackAppNNTPServer\ForumsData.sdf".