Reading a lot of blogs can be tough to manage without an RSS news reader, which consolidates everything you read in one place. While there are plenty of news readers on the Mac, Reeder wins our hearts thanks to its beautiful and simple interface, thorough integration with social features, and fantastic customizability.
Reeder
RSS feeds are an excellent way to keep up to date with all kinds of information sources -- blogs, news, the weather, discussions and more. An RSS feed reader will check subscribed channels for updates automatically and let you browse the news that's important to you. Here are our top picks of news aggregators for Mac users.
Platform: OS X
Price: $5 Download Page Features
Where It ExcelsReeder first entices you with its beautiful and simple interface but keeps you around with its solid list of features. Despite Reeder's simplicity, the app manages to pack in quite a bit. One of the biggest highlights is that Readability—the service that converts web pages into more readable pages of text—is a part of the app. If a news feed contains an article that needs a little touching up, you can click the Readability button and make it a lot cleaner. Reeder also provides tons of ways to share and save articles you find in your feeds. It integrates with several services, such as Instapaper and Pocket. You can also pin articles to Pinterist, save them to Evernote, share them on Twitter or Facebook, and much more. A very comprehensive preferences pane allows you to customize your entire experience, from shortcuts to gestures to the app's appearance. Reeder offers solid performance on its own, but you can make it run exactly the way you want with a few simple tweaks.
Advertisement
Where It Falls ShortReeder offers few downsides, but it does lack subfolders. Rather than displaying any subfolders you may have in your Google Reader account, Reeder simply lists them without any hierarchy (i.e. it displays 'News — Finance' instead of listing Finance below the News category). If you don't have a ton of feeds, this isn't a big deal. If you do, however, you'll find it a little annoying and wasteful. Reeder also costs money. While $5 is a pretty fair price for a really great news reader, its primary competition—NetNewsWire—costs nothing. While we like Reeder better, if you're frugal you're simply not going to choose it when an app that's nearly as good costs absolutely nothing.
Advertisement
The Competition
NetNewsWire (Free) was once our top pick, but over time it has come to feel a bit outdated. That said, it's still a remarkably powerful news reader with lots of great features. It's also free, so if you don't want to cough up $5 for Reeder you can get yourself a great alternative at no cost.
Advertisement
Cream ($4) offers a more compact experience than Reeder's default view and costs a little less. Reeder, however, can shrink down to the same size. Cream is fairly new and still has a ways to go before it's truly a serious competitor, but it's definitely a news reader to watch.
Pulp ($10) costs more than anything on this list and doesn't offer a ton of advantages. That said, if you'd like to read your news feeds in a traditional newspaper format you'll want to check it out. It offers a very different interface from all the other apps and seeks to show you news you'll actually like rather than just everything (by default).
Hp pavillion dv9000 ethernet controller driver. Rupee symbol for mac download. Advertisement
Gruml is another free RSS news reader much like NetNewsWire, but in my few months of use I found it wasn't quite as stable. On the positive side, it does have greater support for external services (like ReadItLater). It may have features that are important to you, and if so it may be worth trying, but despite being a pretty solid app it just doesn't measure up when you're actually using it.
There are a lot of other news readers for Mac but these three offer the most notable, worthwhile differences. If you have a favorite that was pass over or overlooked, please mention it in the comments.
Advertisement
Lifehacker's App Directory is a new and growing directory of recommendations for the best applications and tools in a number of given categories. This week, we're focusing on news reader applications.
Advertisement
Google's changes to Google Reader this week upset a lot of people, and it got us wondering how many of you still use Google Reader as your preferred RSS newsreader when there are so many other options. This week, we're going to highlight some of those other news readers, in case you're looking for alternatives.
Earlier in the week we asked you which application or web service you used to read RSS feeds from your favorite blogs. Over 200 comments later, we're back to highlight the five most popular, based on your nominations.
Advertisement
Best RSS Newsreader?
Google flipped virtual tables with its changes to Google Reader this week. Some of you like it,…
Read more Read
Update: We've counted your votes and listened to your feedback, and now it's time to crown the winner. Head over to this week's hive five followup to see the final standings!
Advertisement
Most Popular RSS Newsreader: Google Reader
Google Reader's latest changes have sparked a lot of debate and discussion, and it got us…
Read more Read
Reeder (Mac/iOS)
Reeder is a sharp-looking feed reader that offers separate clients for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. We've discussed Reeder before, but since its launch, it's clean interface, easy integration and sync with Google Calendar, and integration with services like Read It Later and Instapaper make it a great app on any platform. You can't manage subscriptions in the mobile versions (you can in the desktop version), but you do get an incredible interface to read the news, jump right to the articles you see, star items to save them for later, and save them to other social bookmarking services like Pinboard, Evernote, or post it to Twitter. Reeder will set you back $2.99 for the iPhone version, $4.99 for the iPad version, and $9.99 for the Mac version.
Advertisement
Reeder for Mac Beta Brings Slick Feed Reading to Desktops
Mac only: Reeder is one of the iOS apps we'd love to see in the Mac App Store, and for good…
Read more Read
Advertisement
Feedly (Firefox/Chrome/iOS/Android)
Feedly is another good looking newsreader that does a bit more than just sync with Google Reader. You can hook Feedly into Google Reader so you don't have to import your subscriptions or start from scratch, but that's just the beginning. Feedly also provides additional news and reading material based on topics you already subscribe to, all organized in an uncluttered and easy-to-read layout that works in any browser. The app also integrates with Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. Feedly is free, and installs as a browser extension for Firefox, Chrome, and Safari, with companion apps for iOS and Android.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Netvibes (Webapp)
Netvibes isn't strictly an RSS reader, but it definitely does that well. The basic features are free, and once you sign up for an account you can easily import your feeds, read them, manage your subscriptions, and stay updated when new articles are posted, all in an attractive and easy-to-use interface. You can also use Netvibes to share your stories on Twitter and Facebook or even integrate your Facebook and Twitter feeds with your Netvibes dashboard to see them all in one place. Netvibes' usefulness doesn't stop with feeds: the tool can also be used to aggregate other information as well, like weather, stocks, mail, and more.
Advertisement
Advertisement
FeedDemon (Windows)
Free, easy to use, and quick to set up, FeedDemon isn't the sharpest looking feed reader, but it syncs with Google Reader, is well organized, gives you tons of options, and gets the job done. You can add and manage your own subscriptions from within the app, tag and organize items by keyword or topic, and even use FeedDemon to download and your audio podcasts as well. It's ad-supported, but it's one of the best free feed readers for Windows.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Google Reader (Webapp)
Many of you said that the changes to Google Reader won't stop you from using it at all. After all, it's free, it's web-based, easy to use and set up, and it's tied to your Google Account. Subscribing to feeds is a one-click operation, and organizing them is as easy as dragging and dropping. The fact that it's now more difficult to share stories with others on services other than Google+ is definitely a drawback, but if you use Google+ heavily, it can be a boon. Google Reader is so popular and so widely used that every other feed reader in the roundup syncs with it.
Advertisement
Now that you've seen the top five, it's time to vote for an all-out winner.
What's the Best RSS Newsreader? Free Rss Feed Reader Yahoo
Advertisement
Mac Rss Feed
This week's honorable mentions go out to Newsblur, a great web-based and easily accessible alternative to Google Reader. It imports your feeds and gives you a constantly-updating dashboard of top stories based on your subscriptions.
Google Rss Feed Reader
Did we miss your favorite RSS newsreader? Did we miss a must-mention feature about one of your favorites above? Have your say in the comments below.
Free Rss Feed Reader For Mac
Advertisement
You can reach Alan Henry, the author of this post, at [email protected], or better yet, follow him on Twitter or Google+.
Advertisement
Comments are closed.
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |