Free Desktop RSS Readers - Updates and A Caveat

Update: Since the publication of this post on December 11, there have been a couple of changes which warrant this update. First of all, Jetbrains, the folks behind Omea (reviewed below) and Omea Pro, have decided to take these projects in the world of Open Source Software. This is welcome news. Even more welcome, however, is the fact that now Omea Pro is Free (You can download it here). Not only is Omea Pro everything that Omea Reader is, it has a whole lot more features. As it’s website details, you can:

Bring all your information together That means your email, contacts, documents, files, blogs, transcripts, newsgroups, RSS feeds, pics, webpage bookmarks, tasks, and instant messages are all in the same place, so you don’t need to look through a slew of programs and applications anymore. Learn more

Quickly find specific details, quotes, and facts with Desktop Search functionality.
Learn more �

Organize your information by its relevance to your projects, articles, contacts, research and reports automatically. Learn more �

• Keep your fingers on the pulse of an industry, global conversation, or key segment automatically More…
• Filter your incoming information with Categories
• Add notes directly to any information source More
• Save text excerpts from any resource More
• And categorize it all by topic or project More

Omea Pro 2.1 replaces tools like your Email Organizer, Desktop Search Utility, RSS Reader, Personal Information Manager, Newsgroup Reader, Task Manager, Contact Manager, Bookmark Manager, and Instant Message History Manager. It can also read your Files in Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Adobe Acrobat, and view your Pictures, in one Integrated Information Environment.

If you are looking for a RSS Reader on steroids, then Omea Pro is for you. Try it out. After all, it will now cost you nothing!

In other news, I finally bit the bucket and actually bought some software. Over the past month I have been trying out FeedDemon, and I have found that it far outshines every free desktop RSS Reader out there, and I mean every one (since I have tried them all). It is a great RSS Reader, and I was happy to put down my $19.95 for it (it was on sale through yesterday for $10.00 off its regular price). While I hold out hope that free RSS Readers will get better (especially Omea), I have found the ideal reader for my purposes in FeedDemon.

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Back in September, I did a review of many free Desktop RSS Readers here. This post is an update of that one and contains some of the same information you will find there, plus some new information, reviews and recommendations from me about RSS Readers I have come up with since then. As I said in September, I have test driven a multitude of desktop RSS, including: Nutshell, KlipFolio, AlertBear, Awasu, Feedreader, RSS Owl, RSS Bandit, Omea, Tristana, Companian Desktop, SharpReader, BlogBridge, RSS2PDF, AgileRSS, FeedExplorer, RSS Xpress, BitsCast, GreatNews, News Messenger, FeednRead, BottomFeader, Pears, Feedthing, Novobot, YeahReader, Active WebReader, eRSS Reader, and RSSFeeder.

Given this, here are my reviews (some of them revised) of several RSS readers. All of these warrant at least a “look see,” if you are considering a Desktop (rather than web-based) reader for your own use. First, let me give you some brief reviews of four RSS Readers I did not post about last time:

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Active Web Reader is a fast and responsive RSS reader, but it only shows a feed’s headlines and a brief excerpt of each article. When you click on “Read More” the reader goes into browser mode and shows the post on its original web page. Some people may prefer this way of viewing articles, and if so, this reader may be the one for them. For me, I prefer the ability to see an entire post in the reader itself. Download here.

eRSS reader not only retrieves articles/posts, but it can also automatically download any associated podcasts as well. I found the program very buggy though, and it often rendered a feed’s punctuation incorrectly. A product from the same folks who brought us the Tristana Reader, the eRSS program suffers from some of the same problems as the more fully featured Tristana. Download here.

Noopod - Like the eRSS reader and its big brother Tristana, Noopod is not only an RSS reader, but also incorporates a podcast download function in its programming. The interface for Noopod is very cool looking, but it has very little customization features. In fact, I could not find any way at all to really make Noopod my own. It does offer pop-up notifiers (but if you are like me and subscribe to a lot of feeds, they get very annoying very fast. Noopad also offers weather updates and a TV guide, but since the program is French in origin, they are of little use to those of us in the rest of the world. And again, I found no way to customize these features either. If you live in France, Noopad may be for you - I really like the way it looks - but for everyone else, give Noopod a pass. Download here.

Feedreader is a bare bones RSS reader that offers the three-panel view of newsfeeds. There is no option for a newspaper view, and after a little use, I soon tired of the program’s slowness. It took longer than any other RSS reader I tried to move from post to post. At times it took more than 4 or 5 seconds to move, and that is an eternity as far as today’s software is concerned. There is also no option at all for flagging news items. If you are looking for a bare-bones reader, the one to use is SharpReader. Download FeedReader here.

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To read my original reviews on RSSReader, Blogbridge, FeedExplorer and SharpReader, go to my original post. And now for some updates on some of the RSS readers I reviewed:

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Tristana - This program shows some promise, but I got at least one error message every time I used it. I don’t know what’s up with that, but with so many good free Readers out there, I don’t have to figure it out either. I will day, however, the more I used it, the less frequently the errors appeared. Tristana does however give one the option to download all attachments to posts, including podcasts. Tristana is iPod friendly and allows you to view podcasts and safely download media files immediately or when your PC is idle. You can use the built-in search function to find newsfeeds on the Web, or search downloaded feeds by keyword. There are also several skins you can choose from to change the look of your interface, and you can set your own personal preferences on checking for new content or deleting old content after a specified period of time. Download here.

Additional Notes: I tried Tristana again recently, and still found the program “buggy” and prone to error messages.

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RSSBandit - Offers customizable rendering of feed items with XSLT and looks inspired by FeedDemon. ATOM 0.3 support. Open Source. I like the tabs for the feeds and web pages being separated (tabs are the in thing it seems everywhere nowadays). In fact, out of all the readers I have tried out, I like the looks of RSSBandit best. But it is a RAM hungry program, using 2 to 3 times the resources of the some of the more efficient programs. RSSBandit does requires NET framework, and you can download it here. About.com gives RSSBandit 4 out of 5 stars and says RSSBandit is a nice and very capable feed reader that lets you browse news in an organized fashion. Its flexibility, virtual folders and synchronization abilities are great, but it would be even greater if it integrated with Bloglines in addition to NewsGator Online. CNET also gives it 4 of 5 stars and adds:

RSSBandit is a freeware software program for subscribing, managing, and reading news [feeds]. It has many attractive features, allowing a user to merge news headlines from multiple sources onto a single page and organize articles based on keyword, read/unread status, and age. We liked the built-in tabbed browser that allows a user to read the full article and search for new newsfeeds without quitting the program. Adding newfeeds is a simple one-click action, and the software lets users customize frequency and display settings for each individual feed. Once those settings are chosen, the program updates automatically and can display alerts whenever a new headline is available. We would have liked to see a more flexible search capability, and the internal browser could have used an address bar to make Web navigation a bit easier, but on the whole RSSBandit is an attractive choice for Web news hounds.

Additional Notes: RSSBandit is still a good reader with a nice interface. The problem with it is that it is a real memory hog (using over 150,000 K of RAM at one point) and after a short time of use, it too slows down in processing and moving from feed to feed, especially if you have a large number of them. I had gotten so desperate to find a decent feed reader that I was becoming willing to overlook the memory usage, but when the program began to slow down, then I decided it was time to begin my search for the perfect feed reader again.

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GreatNews is a very fast reader. You can scan thru articles quickly, and you have a choice between the 3-panel e-mail view and newspaper view (some nice choices in this viewing preference as well). GreatNews also works with Bloglines (for those who use this online reader as well) in such a way that both your subscriptions and read items are synchronized. GreatNews is fast and efficient and it also integrates seamlessly with the blogging tool I use as well: Zoundry. Snapfiles gives GreatNews five out of five stars, and goes on to add:

GreatNews is a RSS feed reader that optimized for fast and efficient reading of your favorite web feeds. It offers different view styles, including a newspaper view, that allows you to read a group of feeds organized arranged in newspaper-style page layout without having to click through individual feed items. The program supports custom labels, email and blog integration as well as custom keyword alerts (news watches) that let you automatically find articles of interest and have them available in a special category. Other features include import/export feeds from/to OPML and XML files, automatic cleanup of old items, browser integration with popup blocking and more. GreatNews is small, fast and very efficient - it does not require an installation, just unzip and run.

Also, let me add that GreatNews is so easy to install. It requires neither Java or .NET to use, and it can be downloaded here. Another great review of GreatNews can be found at TipMonkies.

Additional Notes: Great News is a good feed reader, but I have a major problem with it (that I discovered after my initial review). You cannot delete articles in a feed without having them reloaded when the feed refreshes. While Great News does have a cleanup function, if you set it to delete feed articles for too short a time period, they too will reload when the the program refreshes its feeds. Also the developers of Great News have stated that their program will probably not remain free once it is out of BETA.

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So what to do? After investigating almost every free windows or cross-platform RSS reader available on the Web, I have concluded that Jetbrains Omea Reader is now the one I will use. It is fast, responsive, looks good, is free (and will stay that way), and when I delete a post in Omea, it stays deleted and does not reappear the next time a feed is updated. And though I do not currently need the other features of this reader, maybe in time I will come to know, use and appreciate them.

My Current Free RSS Reader recommendation: Jetbrains Omea Reader

Omea Reader - quicker to load, more responsive, and the autofeed discovery process is much easier than most readers. (requires NET framework) It can utilize combined newsfeeds, Usenet newsgroups and bookmarked web pages reader. Commercial license available, but there is also a free personal reader available here. About.com loves Omea and gives it 4 and 1/2 stars. Their review goes on to say:

Omea Reader makes staying up to date with RSS feeds, Usenet news and web pages a smooth experience tailored to your reading style and organizing talent with search folders, annotations, categories and workspaces. It can seem a bit over-complicated at times, though, giving no clear guidance. Omea Reader also lacks learning filters and synchronization.

• Omea Reader lets you read RSS feeds, Usenet newsgroups and web pages, downloads podcasts.
• Omea Reader lets you search items fast, and you can save searches to smart views easily.
• Items can be categorized, flagged and annotated in Omea, and you can save excerpts as clippings.
• Omea Reader automatically links related items (such as blog posts by a person).
• You can import existing RSS feeds from OPML files, other RSS feed readers and Bloglines accounts.
• Omea Reader lets you post to blogs directly and can be expanded further with plug-ins.

Out of all the free Readers I have used, Omea is now my first choice. It does, however, tend to be RAM hungry, and it does far more than an RSS reader needs to do in my opinion. But if you are looking for a complete and feature rich program, Omea is for you. You can download it here.

For another perspective you can also read about the Top Ten Free RSS Readers for Windows here

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The Caveat - I have also been trying out a free trial version of FeedDemon. I guess it is true about what they say: You get what you pay for. FeedDemon appears to have everything that I have been looking for in a RSS Reader. I can delete individual feed items without having them reappear when the feed refreshes. I have a variety if views to choose from (three-panel and newspaper among them). The looks of the program are top-notch. Further, I can move news items I want to save into news bins that I can create (like “to blog,” “follow-up,” or “keep.”). Even when I delete the item in its original folder, it stays in the newsbin until I delete it there. This feature is much better and far more useful than merely flagging an item, which I can also do here.

When FeedDemon is active, it uses a little more RAM than GreatNews, but less than RSSBandit, Omea and FeedReader. Plus, when it is minimized, FeedDemon takes up a minimal amount of RAM, under 2,000 K (comparable to FeedReader and GreatNews). Another feature is that Windows Live Writer is seamlessly integrated with FeedDemon, and I have found Windows Live Writer to be a great blogging platform (even though it is a Microsoft product).

I am also finding that FeedDemon is faster than any of the free readers that I have tried, and this is a big plus. Finally, Newsgator (the maker of FeedDemon) is having a sale on all of it’s products in December, so FeedDemon’s price is now only $19.95 through December ($10.00 off). I do not like to buy software when I can get comparable software for free, but it would seem to me that none of the free RSS readers are comparable to FeedDemon. So, I am tempted to buy myself a Christmas present and purchase FeedDemon before the end of the year. I’ll let you know what I decide. If you want to try FeedDemon out, you can download it here.

Technorati tags: RSS Readers, desktop, free, Active Webtop Reader, eRSS Reader, Noopod, FeedReader, Great News, Tristana, RSS Bandit, Omea Reader, FeedDemon, reviews