For a while, I’d been using an offline reader1, then Google did some upgrades, so I swapped. I’ve been using Google Reader since late 2006, diligently serving my news to me, in its simple, and easy to use interface.
Recently I decided to tinker with a new offline reader, RSSOwl. Simple interface, easy to use, customizable searches, article flagging, and sharing features. Well worth a peek…
So why the swap? Originally I just wanted to take a look at somebody elses’ feeds without having to mess with the mass of feeds I was dealing with, and having seen the size of his collection, it would have been an awful mess to clean up.
Having started using RSSOwl, brought me to finally sign up for a delicious account, now whilst using RSSOwl, sharing with others is a case of clicking a button. Google Reader did have a “Share” link which posted to another RSS feed you could export and share with others too.
One of the reasons I’m enjoying using RSSOwl is because of the custom “saved searches” which allows you to create a search and it’ll stick around for you to go back over. This is handy for things you want to follow up on, such as a blog post you want to write about, just mark it as “Later”, and it’ll appear in the “Labeled News” folder.
Google Reader gives the advantage that it’s available anywhere (including a cut down version for mobile), but seeing as I have my laptop everywhere I go, and rarely get a chance to read feeds on my phone anyway, that feature seems a little lost on me.
Give RSSOwl a shot if you haven’t used an offline reader before. Worth giving up 10-15 mins of tinkering around…
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It used to be FeedReader ↩