Comments on: Web-Based Feed Reader or Desktop Feed Reader?

By: YorickPeterse

YorickPeterse — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 04:09:00 +0000

Haha, that's ok. Don't rush into anything.

By: Scott Jarkoff

Scott Jarkoff — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:52:00 +0000

The ability to read offline is definitely one area where desktop feed readers excel. Only Google Reader has gears support, but it is still not the same as being able to read offline in NNW, so I completely sympathize.

By: Scott Jarkoff

Scott Jarkoff — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:43:16 +0000

I definitely think pruning feeds you no longer find valuable an important aspect of reading feeds. The amount of time it takes to unsubscribe to a pointless feed is not much, and ultimately well worth it in the long run methinks!

By: Scott Jarkoff

Scott Jarkoff — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:37:55 +0000

Completely agreed. One feature of Google Reader which I can not live without is the option to hide feeds from the navigation tree when they have no unread items. I can't really find any desktop feed reader to completely recreate the Google Reader experience, so that may be part of why I adore GR so much.

By: Scott Jarkoff

Scott Jarkoff — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:33:13 +0000

Rock on Yorick – that's what I like to hear. Converting one person at a time. ;-)

I think I still owe you that article on feeds I find valuable to read on a daily basis. Maybe tonight or tomorrow I'll finally put that together.

By: Scott Jarkoff

Scott Jarkoff — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:32:01 +0000

Glad to have helped. As an aside, if you do opt for Google Reader, there are a couple ways to access it via your iPhone. The Google Reader iPhone interface rocks, but there are a couple native iPhone apps which you can use to read your Google Reader feeds, which keep things in sync. Check out Byline – it's really worthwhile!

By: Xander / Narfmaster

Xander / Narfmaster — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 12:46:31 +0000

I find NetNewsWire gives a much better experience for handling large numbers of RSS feeds. I've tried Google Reader, Netvibes etc. in the past but I much prefer moving to a desktop-based client.
Part of the reason is being able to read purely textual posts offline (Although admittedly with Google Gears, Reader does this as well) but it separates the feed listings from the browser so that I'm not distracted all the time. Memory usage isn't really any issue to me with my Mac.
It's also useful being able to have a similar interface on the iPhone with the iPhone version of the app. (which I can customise to only receive certain feeds of my main list with the Desktop app.)

By: MonTemplar

MonTemplar — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 07:54:38 +0000

I've bounced around over the years between Bloglines, Google Reader and desktop software such as FeedDemon. I've now moved back to Google Reader because that way I'm not tied to the one computer when I want to read stuff. Having said that, I've also spent some time pruning off feeds that I don't get much value out of, and running others through online services such as Postrank and FeedScrub to increase the signal-to-noise ratio.

By: JoshuaRJones

JoshuaRJones — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 07:51:05 +0000

Google Reader all the way. I loved how Google Reader only displayed the most recent postings when I add new feeds, rather than downloading the last 40 like most Desktop readers.

For some reason, I adopted to using Reader way more than NetNewsWire. It just seems faster and similar to something you said in your previous post Scott. I'm always in a web browser, so why have another application sucking memory?

By: YorickPeterse

YorickPeterse — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 04:49:24 +0000

Using Google reader here, Scott converted me from a person who isn't using an RSS feed to somebody who checks his feeds everyday :P

By: Pete

Pete — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 04:25:39 +0000

You guys must be mind readers or something as I've been looking into RSS readers and the like today. In fact, I just installed the iPhone app FreeRSS and was about to check out online readers so looks like I'll be looking at Google Reader.