Recommend an RSS news reader

From the Archive: Originally published Feb 13, 2004 on the old Firefox/Pinstripe-era blog.

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stuff

Kevin Feb 13, 2004

For some reason I’ve never met an aggregator that I like. I don’t like to paw through large lists of headlines and bounce between a reader and a web browser. My ultimate aggregator would help me classify by subjects, feeds, headlines and weight them based on my reading habits. Does something like this exist for Mac OS X?

I’ve noticed there are a handful of RSS reader extensions for Mozilla. Does anyone have experience with them?

Comments

Alex on 2004-02-13 12:32:44

I don't think it does - yet. Brent has been talking about some cool ideas along those lines for NNW though.

Lois on 2004-02-14 17:09:07

Hi Kevin, Have you given QuikView a try? Cross-platform, cross-browser friendly and makes for a great bookmark server too. http://quikonnex.com/channel/quikview/home4success

Kevin on 2004-02-17 10:07:44

I've been playing with Amphetadesk, which is nice when you combine it with AmphetaOutlines. AphetaOutlines records your clicks and moves the frequently read stuff to the top. Very nice. Still, I'm not sure if I can get used to reading news this way. I wonder if there is an XUL version of AmphetaOutlines. Hmm :)

Kevin Driver on 2004-02-17 15:32:06

Kevin,

I use the RSS Reader extension for Mozilla Firefox, and I love it. It's very handy, and it's nice to have the posts rendered in a Gecko engine instead of by a generic rss reader.

Kevin on 2004-02-18 12:42:56

The RSS Reader Panel is a very cool addition to Firefox. But it downloads newsfeeds one at a time as I click on them. AmphetaDesk and NetNewsWire download all your subscribed feeds at once which makes skimming much easier.

GSF on 2004-02-21 17:32:28

Take a look at FeedDemon

David Smith on 2004-02-22 18:12:21

Omniweb 5 beta has RSS support. Not sure how good it is though.

Kevin on 2004-02-22 21:44:30

Yeah, I was looking at Omniweb's RSS support the other day. They integrate it into the Bookmarks Manager. It's a nice try, but the functionality is pretty bare bones.

and GSF, FeedDemon is for Windows. I'm on a Mac :)

adam on 2004-02-23 08:39:20

Try Bloglines It's web-based so you can read from where ever you are.

Dave on 2004-03-01 18:37:43

I've read good things about NetNewsWire. It's a rss reader for OS X. The full version costs $39.95, but there's a lite version that's freeware and has most of the functionality.

**** on 2004-03-05 05:44:43

The lite version of NetNewsWire is buried behind a lot a scrolling on their page. Otherwise, it is the least annoying one so far. It even aggregrates!

**** on 2004-03-05 05:46:18

sorry! exhausted today.

Vyse on 2004-03-18 03:23:13

Have you tried NewsMac yet?

pb on 2004-04-20 23:27:09

I'm unfortunately not aware of any Mac readers that appraoch FeedDemon.

NNW is OK but unrefined and expensive. The free version doesn't have the three side-by-side panels. Channels are displayed in a tree which is clunky.

Shrook's synching is cool but the client is terrible. No dates. 4 panels instead of the better 3. Distracting stars. Headlines-only in summary panel.

NewsMac is polished but has way too much feed organization to the detriment of feed reading.

Web-based services are horribly inefficent.

It would be terrific if someone would "port" FeedDemon to MacOS.

Mark Derricutt on 2004-04-25 02:02:43

You could try BottomFeeder, cross platform Smalltalk based RSS reader. Has a nice bundle for OS/X.