The EA works, it does what's it supposed to do. It places pending orders before the news, with all the rules of this system. The results in terms of profitability however are arguable. But it can be backtested on news data from the several years, so ...
The new updated version of the MT4 News EA uses the DailyFX calendar and allows backtesting. Also, there's an optional feature that allows you to set the pending order at the High/Low of the current candle, on any timeframe you choose (H4 by ...