Freenet2 and Freenet3 are used as workhorses for users to login to
from the modem pool. Freenet1, being freenet.carleton.ca gets hit on a
lot by people telneting into the system over the network. Freenet1 is
also the email host, and holds all the user's home directories. This
enables the mail system to deliver to a local disk.
There are three primary pieces of software that the user runs: menu, mr and nr. These are a menuing program, a mail reader, and a newsreader. Alternate versions of all three of these are available.
Jim Elder has enhanced all three of these programs at various times, but little work has been done to make the programs as efficient as they could be. Others have compiled and secured alternate mail and news readers. It is uncertain how these programs compare to mr and nr in terms of system resource usage.
Some (e.g. elm) are much more user friendly than the current programs, but most of the friendlyness is acquired at the cost of making them unusable to someone without good terminal emulation.
The other program used a great deal is the editors. Although statistics show that many notice users have yet to select an editor, once they learn to do so, and learn to run the editor, some people find they spend most of their time in their editor. The editors are used to compose messages for public or private posting. Advanced users may edit at home and upload all of their messages.