Written on October 24th, 2006 at 03:10 pm by Darren Rowse
RSS News Reader Reviews
I missed this earlier in the month but CNET put together a review of some of the more popular RSS readers at Make your own headlines.
They looked at Bloglines (rated 7.7), Rojo (rated 6.7), Google Reader (no rating given), FeedDemon 2 (rated 8.0) and Newsagator Inbox 2.6 (rated 7.5).
What RSS/News Reader/s do you use?
found via a Feed is Born
40 Responses to “RSS News Reader Reviews”
Michael
October 24th, 2006 4:13 pm
On my mac I use NewsFire ($18.95) and on my PC I use FeedReader, both excellent apps. I love newsfire because of its 1 hand navigation (you can navigate the entire program with your arrow keys), and I love FeedReader which is free, it does pretty much everything you need it to do.
bogdanlebu
October 24th, 2006 4:53 pm
google reader
The Zero Boss
October 24th, 2006 5:27 pm
Color me unimpressed.
The Google Reader review is the older version, not the newer one. That makes this comparison useless. The new GR is way superior to the old one, and is getting great reviews all over the place. I’m noticing more and more readers coming from Google reader as well. And a lot of my blogging readers are using GR sharing on their blogs now in lieu of a blogroll.
Lasto adri *Blue*
October 24th, 2006 5:28 pm
used to use bloglines for a while till the google reader upgrade…
well, i like the option to have all new posts shown in the same page “in g- reader” case.. i like the outlook
however, i hate its slowness.. it takes a bit more time to load an rss for the 1st time, and sometimes takes forever to show the latest posts in some blogs i am subscribed to.
I miss the option for having a public “bloglines” account! used to like wondering between my friends’ accounts and see what feeds they are subscribed to. Now now more availability for this option in google.
hmm, whatelse.. nothing serious i can remember at the now. for more personal updates i’ll make sure to write.
Ken Cheung
October 24th, 2006 5:29 pm
I’ve been playing with the new Google reader, but it annoys me a little when I switch from one feed to the next. There’s a noticeable delay (compared to Bloglines). Also, not sure if this was the case with the previous google reader, but the new reader doesn’t report the number of subscribers to FeedBurner (or other services).
Sarit
October 24th, 2006 5:33 pm
I’m using NewAlloy but they’ve been having a few gliches lately, so the new and improved Google Reader is used as backup.
Couldn’t understand how to make the old Google Reader work; and I’m pretty net-savvy.
Matthew
October 24th, 2006 5:33 pm
I’ve been using the new Google reader for a couple of weeks and it’s the best one I’ve used so far. I started with Bloglines ages ago and I’ve tried Firefox live bookmarks, Feed Daemon and I even shelled out for Attensa for outlook, which was 20$ to discover something that didn’t work.
Daniele
October 24th, 2006 5:42 pm
I’m finding very useful Netvibes, I’m using it like RSS reader, mail reader, todo lists, Notes and other useful things.
Brajeshwar
October 24th, 2006 6:25 pm
NetNewsWire for Mac.
FeedDemon on Windows and was an avid user of Newsgator Inbox for Outlook.
Richard Brunton
October 24th, 2006 6:36 pm
Bloglines. Always been a big fan and the recent rework has made it slicker and much, much faster. Especially if you’re running 230 odd feeds like me!
I’ve not found anything else that comes close to making it easy and simple for me to keep track of all these feeds, and I have tried.
Robin Capper
October 24th, 2006 7:06 pm
I use RSS Bandit - http://www.rssbandit.org/
Prefer a stand-alone to web based reader and like it’s ability to sync my feed list (+ read state) on multiple machines.
Random Good Stuff
October 24th, 2006 7:10 pm
I am using Newz Crawler ( it’s not for free) but but it handles big amounts of feeds.
Bec
October 24th, 2006 7:28 pm
Google Reader.
but previously ran with Bloglines.
I do miss having the notifier on my toolbar.
Shawn
October 24th, 2006 8:08 pm
I was a Bloglines devotee until the new Google Reader launched. The fact that it marks each article as you read it, instead of a whole folder in bulk matters alot to me, as I have to read my feeds “shotgun” style, i.e. I don’t usually get long spans of time to just sit and read.
If you find you have to take in your RSS in short spurts, and you haven’t tried Google Reader yet, I’d highly recommend it.
jdanylko
October 24th, 2006 9:12 pm
I’ve been using FeedDemon for office use/local and love the watches. I have a ton of RSS’s from deal sites and “watch” the bargains as they come out.
When on the road, I use Google Reader. However, it doesn’t have any watches, but its probably the best out there right now.
Ben
October 24th, 2006 9:30 pm
I used to use Flock, but I got tired of that, so now I’m using Google Reader. In between I had used NetNewsWire and NewsFire for a bit, but gReader is so much more convenient than using an external program, and it is essentially as functional as anything else I’ve come across. The freeness is nice too.
Garri
October 24th, 2006 9:54 pm
Netvibes is by far the best web based reader I’ve tried - dead easy, quick and a joy to behold. But I’m looking to try an app based reader - any suggestions? I’m running OSX
MamaDuck
October 24th, 2006 10:03 pm
Well, I’ve always used Bloglines and I’m happy with it - right now I don’t have the time or desire to try the new Google reader, as Bloglines does what I want it to do and works great ;).
Mike
October 24th, 2006 10:45 pm
Feed Demon is a 9.9 for me.
Dave
October 24th, 2006 10:49 pm
I use Newshutch. It’s a pretty nice application written in Rails. No ads, but it gets a bit sluggish at times.
brem
October 24th, 2006 10:59 pm
The Sage plugin for Firefox.
Thomas
October 24th, 2006 11:25 pm
Recently switched from Sage (for Firefox) to Google Reader.
Andreas
October 24th, 2006 11:51 pm
I use Newsfire on my Macbook. Works great and was well worth the money considering that it’s probably my second most used program after Firefox.
I used to use Feeddemon on my PC, worked quite well too.
Geri
October 25th, 2006 12:06 am
I use FeedReader and am very happy with it. Since this is the first (read only) reader I’ve ever used I have no frame of reference to compare the others. I find it easy to use and quick to update.
engtech
October 25th, 2006 12:23 am
I used Bloglines, I’m trying Google Reader and of the moment it looks like I’m going back to Bloglines.
Google Reader has a bug where you can’t unsubscribe from some feeds. It’s amazingly annoying.
feral cat
October 25th, 2006 12:35 am
Google Reader, though it can be a bit slow at times and as engtech mentioned above, it does get a bit buggy when you try to unsubscribe from feeds.
Bryan Fleming
October 25th, 2006 1:30 am
Google Reader for me. Works great!
- Bryan
http://www.bryancfleming.com
gazard
October 25th, 2006 2:08 am
Hi Darren, my first comment here although have been subscribe to your blog almost a year. I use Bloglines previously and have switched over to Google Reader after its major update. I like the way Google Reader mark my read item, not the whole folder as once (blogline).
Rhea
October 25th, 2006 3:34 am
I have only used Bloglines but am open to switching if I can find something better. I am going to look into the other RSS readers you’ve mentioned here.
Joshua Lane
October 25th, 2006 3:49 am
I use Alertbear and love it. It’s a small feed reader that just sits in my taskbar and pops up a simple notification when it grabs a new post.
lordtime
October 25th, 2006 5:00 am
News Alloy - only one reasonable choice for my 1340 feeds
don’t even advise anything else :)
and CNET.. they always wrote for money
Kevin
October 25th, 2006 9:13 am
SharpReader is quite good - uses the IE engine in its viewing pane, and I am just trying Feed Reader.
I like the looks of RSS Bandit though and will give that a go.
Darlene
October 25th, 2006 12:14 pm
Netvibes! Like the online tool much better than the desktop software I was using - frees up my computer resources when we are talking a couple hundred RSS feeds ;-)
CW
October 25th, 2006 7:06 pm
Bloglines for me!
Eber
October 26th, 2006 11:20 am
Google Reader all the way….. but i can say it for sure, cause i started using rss with Google Reader, never tested any others…..
Joe Tan
October 27th, 2006 10:23 pm
I had just started out to try RSS about 2 weeks ago. Now using Bloglines after looked through a few others. Like the nice and simple layout. So far serving me good. Of coz no harm trying others like new Google reader later.
Nick
October 28th, 2006 10:55 am
I use Google Reader. Most of the time I simply check it from my personalized Google Home Page, but when I get really far behind in my RSS reading I’ll visit the actual site.
Tamar Weinberg
November 1st, 2006 12:26 pm
I am a fan of Bloglines, but I might end up transitioning. However, as it is, I’ve got over 120 feeds and the status quo seems to be holding well for me.
Max
November 10th, 2006 6:29 am
I use Sharp Reader. I`ts simple, quick and free.
Dave
August 12th, 2007 3:43 pm
What about Vvvroom, it’s a free news web based newsreader. There’s a bunch of already stored popular feeds to choose from with the usual enter a direct RSS feed ulr interface.
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