Readefine Desktop

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET staff on September 06, 2011

We are big fans of Google Reader, the RSS aggregator that gathers all our favorite blogs and news sites in one place. We never gave much thought to Google Reader's interface, with its long list of unread articles; it neither impressed nor annoyed us, though it could get a little overwhelming at times. But then we discovered Readefine Desktop. This sleek program totally changed the way we use Google Reader, and we're not sure we'll ever go back.

It was easy to get started with Readefine Desktop; all we had to do was log in to our Google Reader account and our feeds were automatically synced. The program has two layouts, Magazine and Classic. Magazine displays article titles and introductions in a magazinelike grid; you can view all the items in your feed or, if they're organized into groups, all the items in a particular group. Clicking on the article title displays the full article in an attractive, print-style layout. The Classic layout functions similarly, but all the user's predefined groups are accessible in a sidebar for easy navigation. We admit that it took us a while to get used to the way that Readefine Desktop works--moving between different groups and different feeds wasn't totally intuitive at first--but once we got the hang of it, we loved it. The program is really nice to look at, with all articles displayed in an easy-to-read serif typeface. It gives the feeling of flipping through a magazine, but it retains typical RSS reader features like the "Mark All as Read" button. A built-in Help file gives an overview of how Readefine Desktop works. Overall, we think that Readefine Desktop is a great choice for anyone who misses print media and wants a more elegant way to read RSS feeds.

Readefine Desktop installs and uninstalls without issues.