For basic RSS reading, you may not need much more than your trusty Web browser (see Browser Support: Built-In RSS-IE 7 Beta 2 vs. Firefox (With Sage) vs. Opera). For serious news reading, however, neither browsers nor online services are as fast or as configurable as downloadable clients.
Even a beta release like SharpReader is far more efficient at quickly navigating lots of feeds than the best online reader. Although it can be a memory hog, SharpReader has excellent notification windows and threaded category support, and it can show which feed items are linked to other feed items--a good indicator of a story's importance. The software also does a fine job of identifying the location of RSS feeds when you type in the URL of a site's home page.
Awasu is yet another step up. Its free version consists of a sleek but feature-rich three-pane news reader with a full-on browser in the third pane, including tabbed browsing that makes jumping back to a previous feed simple. Awasu also allows you to search your feeds quickly, and among its plethora of customization options are plug-ins that enable you to establish standing Google searches, save multimedia files to a designated directory, and subscribe to Yahoo groups. Awasu's only real drawbacks are its lack of clear keyboard commands, its tendency to consume lots of system resources, and its overly strict handling of RSS feeds, which causes it to choke on feeds that other readers handle. The paid version ($29) removes limits on the number of plug-ins and feeds, and lets users subscribe to password-protected feeds.
NewsGator's FeedDemon 2.0 costs $30, but it's worth every penny. It is remarkably fast, doesn't hog memory, and combines multiple intuitive layout options with a bevy of options to suit your reading style.
The send-to tool permits you to easily post an item to social bookmarking site Del.icio.us, copy it to the clipboard, or e-mail or blog about the item. The second pane supports multiple tabs, which can load feeds or display a selected item in a browser view. You can then add an item to your IE favorites or browse to a new site. The program's only noticeable flaws are its unchangeable alphabetical feed sort and its rigidly icon-based method of opening an item in a new tab.
But that's just nitpicking. FeedDemon's fantastic design and generous feature set, paired with NewsGator Online's ability to sync multiple computers and mobile readers, makes FeedDemon the best all-around news-reading application.
News as Mail
A number of programs, such as NewsGator Inbox 2.6, integrate RSS feeds with your e\0x2011mail. The NewsGator Inbox installation process is simple and informative, with a handy option to add preselected categories of feeds. Importing more than a few feeds is an intensely long and memory-hogging process, however.
Another interesting application, Omea Reader, is part of an ultra-ambitious productivity suite whose all-encompassing approach you will either love or hate. Though it can function as a free-standing reader, it integrates with the $49 Omea Pro, which aims to be an e-mail client, an RSS reader, a browser, a calendar, an instant messager, and a desktop search application.
Omea Pro has some great features, such as a tab that lets you read your feeds by byline, multiple workspaces to segregate projects, and an automated e-mail contact manager. It takes some time to get used to, but Omea is an impressive effort, and some people may find that it's just the organizational aid they need.
Though news-management software overall is still in its infancy, such tools continue to improve. While you're waiting for the perfect approach, your best bet is to mix and match. Place the RSS feeds from social sites like Digg into a news recommender like Tailrank or Findory, and then grab the personalized feed and throw the results at a news reader you like; you'll soon discover the sweet spot where you get most of the news you want without spending all day trying to keep up.
Configurable Home Pages: Netvibes vs. My Yahoo
You can add plenty of interesting modules to a My Yahoo page (left) but the Ajax underpinnings of Netvibes (above) make tweaking your home page much easier. Want a customized starting point for your news reading?
Netvibes lets you drag and drop modules to build a flexible home page that combines RSS feeds, Web mail, weather reports, and Flickr photo streams. No log-in is required, and Netvibes will remember the setup for future visits from the same computer.
My Yahoo is also an excellent home page with simple ways to add, move, and remove preconfigured modules, but it gives no way to add non-Yahoo Web mail, and its banner ads are distracting. While its default news photos are nice, adding photos from Flickr (a Yahoo property) to My Yahoo is more difficult than doing so with Netvibes.
Edge: Netvibes
Browser Support: Built-In RSS--IE 7 Beta 2 vs. Firefox (With Sage) vs. Opera
Feeds are integrated with your favorites in the IE 7 beta (above). The Sage plug-in for Firefox (left) also organizes feeds in a sidebar, while Opera's built-in RSS support (below) feels more like an e-mail client. Among Web browsers, Opera has long been ahead of the curve in supporting RSS feeds natively: It easily adds new feeds and notifies you of new items. But Opera's horizontally divided two-pane display looks a bit bland and lacks inline image support.
Firefox's Sage plug-in is a little rough around the edges. Adding a Feedburner subscription requires cutting and pasting a URL, for example, and while Sage can treat a favorites folder as if it were a set of feeds, that works only with one folder. But once your feeds are setup, pressing <Alt>-S displays the sidebar and an attractive two-column view showing each story and images in its own box.
It's been a long time coming, but the native support in IE 7 Beta 2 works quite well. Feeds are integrated with favorites, and though the feed-by-feed, single column look may not be the most efficient, it's more eye pleasing than Sage's or Opera's. You can search each feed and reorder stories by date, title, or author. If its feed detection improves,
IE 7 could win over newsies and newbies alike.
Edge: Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2
Top RSS Readers (chart)