As myrtle said, you can make the news module load on your main page or any other module you wish. It may not have all the bells and whistles that platinum or evo does but the trade off is security and reliability.

I don't know what value you place on returning to your site daily and seeing it online and working properly every day but I consider it priceless. These other higher versions of nuke plus forks as mentioned above are like rolling the dice IMHO and not worth the time to even install them.