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June 04, 2004
Cool Tool Friday: RSS Aggregators
I'm going to pick off another easy one for the second installment of Cool Tool Friday: RSS Aggregators. I split my time between Windows and OS X these days, and I have aggregators for both that I like. For Windows, I use SharpReader. It seems solid, stable, and fast. It has a nice search function, allows you to organize your feeds into folders, and uses cool looking (by Windows standards) alert windows when new posts come in.
On my Mac, I use NetNewsWire by Ranchero Software. It's pretty similar to SharpReader in terms of looks and functionality. It's rock solid and very fast, and allows for a fair amount of layout customization. The free version (NetNewsWire Lite) is very functional, but lacks some of the layout flexibility, search functionality, and the ability to make weblog posts. Both versions have the ability to discover RSS feeds given a site's URL, which is a nice, time-saving feature.
Another one to keep an eye on for OS X is Pulp Fiction by Freshly Squeezed Software. In terms of functionality, Pulp Fiction is actually my favorite, however I haven't found it to be stable enough for day-to-day use with the number of feeds I aggregate (probably close to 200). I'm actually a little surprised they are selling it with as unstable as it currently is, but as soon as they get the kinks worked out, I will happily pay the $25 for a full license. It takes a very unique approach to RSS aggregation, treating it more like mail (and is, in fact, modeled after Apple's Mail application). Rather than putting feeds into categories, you can filter posts into folders, and read new posts in an "inbox". I really like the concept, and will hopefully be using it full time relatively soon, assuming it is still being actively developed and improved.
What do you like for RSS aggregation, and why?
Posted by cantrell at June 4, 2004 01:29 PM | References
Comments
I like server-side aggregators, because you can check them from anywhere. I built ours off a php source called feedonfeeds... does autodiscov. atom, etc.
http://www.medlogs.com
Posted by: dave ross at June 4, 2004 02:23 PM
NetNewsWire is awesome. I spent a lot of time looking for an aggregator, both on Windows and Mac, and Netnewswire was the only one that did not slow down with 200+ feeds, and which organized them in the way i like (showing all feeds in a folder / category).
NewsGator on Windows is not too bad, but it is pretty slow.
mike chambers
mesh@macromedia.com
Posted by: mike chambers at June 4, 2004 03:04 PM
Feed Demon!!!
Posted by: Josh Dura at June 4, 2004 04:18 PM
I'm a huge fan of BlogLines, a free web-based reader. I used to rely on two separate desktop feed readers - one at work on my PC, and one at home on my iBook - but was irritated that posts I read during the day appeared as new at home. Since switching to BlogLines I don't have that problem.
http://www.bloglines.com/
Posted by: Barry Frost at June 4, 2004 05:11 PM
Whew. Good thing Josh jumped in there. I second... Feed Demon is awesome. Another example of a well thought out app by Bradbury.
If its technical merits weren't enough, who wouldn't feel good about buying from a long-time friend of the Macromedia (and Allaire) community?
Posted by: Michael Conger at June 4, 2004 06:41 PM
Not much of a web-based aggregator guy myself. On Mac I echo Christian's choices, using NetNewsWire (but also have a copy of PulpFiction and plan to switch once the bugs are worked out). On Windows, it's hard to argue with FeedDemon- Nick Bradbury's got it seriously going on. I love that app.
Posted by: Scott Fegette at June 4, 2004 07:49 PM
Ok, now you guys have me curious. I have to give FeedDemon a test drive over the weekend.
Christian
Posted by: Christian Cantrell at June 4, 2004 10:12 PM
Of course FeedDemon! (it also carries the Fullasagoog blended feed as a default so Nick knows where the bed is buttered best :)
Posted by: Geoff Bowers at June 5, 2004 01:03 AM
FeedDemon here.
Posted by: Todd at June 5, 2004 10:40 AM
Yet another vote for FeedDemon in Windows land! I tried SharpReader and wanted to like it -- but the single thing that kept me on feedreader was the News Bins for storing links. Yeah -- I could blog them to my personal blog, but sometimes I just want to save a blog entry, not blog it. The Watches are pretty cool too. Both would be great features for other (Windows) rss tools to emulate.
Posted by: John Paul Ashenfelter at June 6, 2004 02:51 PM
After trying several aggregators, RSSBandit (http://rssbandit.org/ - open source project developed in C#) became my favorite one several weeks ago and since then I am very happy with it.
The interface looks nice and, although it can have some improvements, it is quite configurable.
In addition, for the feeds that support the CommentAPI, you can directly post comments.
There is this interesting post here: http://ryanfarley.com/blog/archive/2004/05/14/629.aspx comparing various news aggregators. RSSBandit seems to be his favorite too.
Posted by: Alex Muntean at June 6, 2004 09:43 PM
I love the RSS Reader Panel extension for Mozilla Firefox. Simple and easy. Not much by way of advanced search/indexing or discovery.
Posted by: Dennis Spaag at June 7, 2004 11:28 AM
I decided to go with a server aggregator, so I chose 'feed on feeds' as well. Seems to work so far, although I am new to aggregators.
Just had to uninstall "NewsMonster", which is a plug-in app for Mozilla. It added another panel (beside the Sidebar) and used Java. Slowed down my browser significantly.
Posted by: Jay Brown at June 7, 2004 12:20 PM
your blog is very nice!!!
Posted by: tmaeda at June 13, 2004 12:53 PM