Spend a lot of time reading web-based forums? Wish there was a way to sift through new articles without visiting umpteen sites every day and hitting refresh a few hundred times a day? Web Forum Reader is a desktop application that lets you keep read postings from a wide variety of internet forums. It also works sort of like an RSS reader or email client, in that you can keep track of read items and scheduled automatic updates.

You'll need to take a few minutes to set up each forum you want to follow, since Web Forum Reader doesn't necessarily know how each page is laid out. But the setup process is relatively painless. You just have to click a couple of links on a forum page and tell the program if it's doing a good job of recognizing the page elements.

Web Forum Reader lets you open multiple tabs for viewing more than one forum at the same time. And you can create groups to keep all of your tech forums separated from your Mandy Moore fan forums. The application will set you back $30, but there's a 40 day free trial if you just want to check it out.

[via Brown Thoughts]