Filed under: Internet, Text, Utilities, News, Windows, Productivity, Microsoft, Freeware, Open Source
RSS Readers: SOUND OFF!
by Ryan Carter Jul 21st 2006 at 11:25AM
I need a new RSS reader. I am kinda picky, hard to please, and a power user / administrator. Anyone out there know of an RSS reader, whether by download or on the web, that you consider to be the RSS killer app out there? I have tried a bunch of them, bloglines (not intuitive enough), NewsGator (not intuitive enough but the one I use right now), feedreader (not bad but lists all text, not actual web pages from links), Wizz RSS plugin for firefox (not bad, but is way too hard to use), Rojo (adds feed I don't want), Google Reader (too cumbersome), etc. Even if you use the ones I just listed, please enlighten me as to which one you can't live without and why. Are there others worth trying? Usually on download squad we bring you all the newest, latest, and greatest. Now it's your turn. Tell me why you love the RSS reader you use and why it's the best. I may just end up finding a new one to use. Ready, set, go!
So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do.
Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game.
The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
tyler said 11:30AM on 7-21-2006
NewsAlloy is what you're looking for, I promise. :)
http://newsalloy.com/
Reply
Steve Algieri said 11:31AM on 7-21-2006
I still use Thunderbird so that all my comms are in one place. It's a bit cumbersome to setup but then it just works.
Reply
Miro said 11:34AM on 7-21-2006
I like greatnews (http://www.curiostudio.com/) especially its summary layout and its tab browsing. If you try it, spend a few minutes and go through the preferences.
Reply
Bryan said 11:35AM on 7-21-2006
Yahoo mail beta. I use it mostly for blogs. The best for what I need. I cant install anything on a work pc, so the web interface is very nice.
Reply
stephen said 11:35AM on 7-21-2006
NewsFire or Vienna
Reply
Jeremy said 11:40AM on 7-21-2006
Great News - simple but very effective
http://www.curiostudio.com/
Reply
Sam said 11:41AM on 7-21-2006
I just load the RSS feeds in my Firefox "Bookmarks Toolbar Folder."
I can just click one, and a menu comes down with all the news stories for that site. Very fast, and no other programs to worry about.
Reply
Anthony said 11:45AM on 7-21-2006
I use the Sage plugin for Firefox, I couldn't live without it now... but maybe that's just the way I work.
It's fairly no frills, but does everything you need it to.
Reply
Richard said 11:46AM on 7-21-2006
I use RSSBandit. The feature set is good and it does everything I want it to.
However
It's a resource hog, very slow to run and you need to configure the fonts to get the UI looking consistent. In addition, since it can only refresh feeds all at the same time, you get nothing and then suddenly 10 odd pop up windows informing you of new things. It would be better if it staggered the polling of feeds.
I also tried Feedreader which was nice and simple, but it kept getting into problems and duplicating new postings which was very annoying.
So in short, I've not found a free lightweight decent one either.
Reply
Jp Checa said 11:48AM on 7-21-2006
I've been using Feedreader for the past 2 months and it's working out very well for me.
Reply
Jorge said 11:48AM on 7-21-2006
I use Bloglines for the simple fact that it is easy to use, and is the only one I know of that let's me easily access my feeds on my PDA. The ability to use the same aggregator on both a PC and PDA was my #1 requirement.
Reply
JTWise said 11:49AM on 7-21-2006
I love FeedDemon. Works great for my 90 feeds. Not sure if it is what you are referring to for Newsgator, but it is a great standalone that can also integrate with Newsgator.
Reply
John said 11:49AM on 7-21-2006
SharpReader is pretty nice...got it from a link at Of Zen And Computing that you spammed out earlier in the week. It's got a small footprint, can display bubble windows when new stuff arrives, is customizable, can run in the systray background, and is relatively easy to link to full pages. Oh, and you can right-click and email web links that include the title in the subject line. Pretty sweet for a forwarder like me. The drawback is that it's a local install, but I figure you can get around that by using a USB key (haven't tested this yet). Oh, and it's donationware. Rock.
Reply
MikeH said 11:51AM on 7-21-2006
I used to use the free RSSBandit for years but it was using too much memory to have running while programming. Now I BOUGHT and use FeedDemon and sometimes the online NewsGator version when away form my desk, but since my feeds are sycnhed up it is no problem switching between the two.
Reply
revolute said 11:59AM on 7-21-2006
I too have been disappointed with the quality of RSS newsreaders for Windows. I have been generally happy with NetNewsWire for Mac and consider it to be pretty ideal. Anything nearly compatible with thath for Windows tends to crash quite a bit for me -- someone who happens to track a couple hundred too many RSS feeds for his own good!
Reply
Brad said 12:01PM on 7-21-2006
Netvibes
I've been using it for many months now with nary a problem. I like the layout of a web based newsreader compared to "feeder" type readers.
try it and you'll like it.
Cheers,
B
Reply
Sonburn said 12:02PM on 7-21-2006
I like RSSOwl, found at http://rssowl.org/. Even has a cool Mozilla'ish logo.
Reply
resource said 12:05PM on 7-21-2006
Newzcrawler is good, but you have to "pay" for it.
http://www.newzcrawler.com/
I like Google Reader because they are constantly improving it and its easy to manage.
The keyobard shortcuts are good and there is Greasemonkey for anything else.
Reply
Brett O'Connor said 12:08PM on 7-21-2006
I'm picky too, but personally I find Google Reader the LEAST cumbersome of the web-based reader and have made it the one I use. Just pound 'j' to read items, 'v' to open them, or use the space bar to scroll on through. Doesn't get much easier than that. I like my web readers George Jeston style - push one button all day long.
Reply
Chuck Kahn said 12:11PM on 7-21-2006
I like Google Reader, especially now with the recently added drop-down Subscription and Label menus. I like the ability to access my feeds anywhere -- which is why I originally used Bloglines. But on top of that, Google adds the fast keyboard shortcuts (j & k for next & previous article, l for adding a label), and the ability to turn any label into a feed or a linkblog. Plus it uses the same login as gmail/calendar/notebook/groups and all the other Google betas.
Reply