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Have you ever used an RSS newsreader? Though you can surf to your favorite sites using your Web browser of choice, RSS readers bring all the news to you in a simple format that's conducive to getting more information quickly. The best RSS readers make it easy to add your favorite sites so you can quickly sift through headlines. When you find something of interest, you can often expand the story in an RSS reader or go directly to the site to read more. If you spend a lot of time on the Web, RSS readers are a great way to find the stuff you want without having to load a bunch of Web sites.
RSS readers come in a lot of flavors, including some that are browser plug-ins, others that offer a standalone desktop app, and still others that behave almost like widgets.
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KlipFolio offers a unique RSS experience, giving you a personal dashboard that you can customize with news headlines, your favorite blogs, weather feeds, and tons of other information. The program sits on the side of your desktop and it's skinnable so you can customize it to your style.
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Sage is a basic RSS feed and news aggregator for Firefox. With this add-on, you can navigate the latest newsfeeds right in your Firefox sidebar. The interface is extremely easy to navigate, with a top panel for headlines and a bottom panel if you want more information about a story. If you're looking for the easiest way to break into RSS, Sage is a good place to start.
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RSS Bandit is a standalone reader that has many attractive features, allowing a user to merge news headlines from multiple sources onto a single page, and organize articles based on keyword, read/unread status, and date. The built-in tabbed browser allows you to read a full article and then switch to a different story without closing out the original article. If you like to open and read several stories at once, this is the reader for you.
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Snarfer is a top-notch feed reader that will devour your RSS and Atom feeds, but more experienced RSS junkies might find it too basic. An uncomplicated, uncluttered interface follows a generic app design of left-side listed entries with a right-side preview pane. Experienced users will miss customizations like changing fonts and preview pane location, but if you want a simple way to get your news in one place--without an overwhelming amount of settings--Snarfer might be the right choice for you.
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FeedDemon is a well-crafted, standalone newsreader that makes for an ideal choice for both novices who've never heard of an RSS feed and advanced users looking to put some oomph and flexibility into their reading habits. FeedDemon also features a Watch Channels option to search for news items containing user-specified keywords and places them in a separate group so they're easier to find. If you're looking for customization and flexibility, FeedDemon delivers.
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Some people can get by with using their bookmarks to save their favorite sites. But if you spend a lot of time on the Web and want a way to get the latest news from several sites, any of these programs are up to the task.
If Really Simply Syndication is like a drug for news junkies, allowing headlines, blog posts, and podcasts to be sent automatically to a computer's desktop every day, then RSS Bandit is the risk-free delivery system.
The basics are all present and accounted for, with subscribing, managing, and reading the flow of news all easy to perform tasks. RSS Bandit has many attractive features, too, allowing a user to merge news headlines from multiple sources onto a single page and organize articles based on keyword, read-unread status, and age. The built-in tabbed browser lets users read the full article and search for new newsfeeds without quitting the program is a must-have these days, and adding new feeds is a simple one-click action. The software lets users customize frequency and display settings for each individual feed, too. Once those settings are chosen, the program updates automatically and can display alerts whenever a new headline is available.
The native search capability is a bit lacking and could be more flexible, while the internal browser could have used an address bar to make Web navigation a bit easier. On the whole, RSS Bandit is an attractive choice for news hounds.
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Whenever I'm setting up on a new computer or test machine at work, or even after I've downloaded my must-have programs on a new home machine, one of the first things I do is grab an RSS newsreader. Though you can use Web browser favorites to hit and save your most visited sites, newsreaders have a few advantages that make getting all the latest updates even easier.
With a good newsreader on your machine, anytime you see an available RSS feed at a Web site (usually with an orange RSS or XML label), you can have all the latest news from that page delivered to you. Think of it as having your own digital paper boy. Once you've loaded up your RSS reader with feeds from your favorite blogs, news, and technology sites, the latest posts show up in your newsreader automatically without you needing to seek them out.
The newsreader category runs the gamut of interface diversity so you can get your feeds in a lot of different ways. There are news tickers like the Mighty Ticker, which show headlines you can open as they trail across your screen; unique toolbar-like apps like KlipFolio, which sit as a stand-alone widgets on your desktop; and Web-based apps like Google Reader (for those with a Google account) that offer a strong browser-based alternative .
To keep it simple, I've narrowed my selections down to newsreaders you can download right away with the most intuitive and commonly used interface. I just want to point out, when you're ready to explore some of the other methods of getting the latest news, there are plenty of options available. As always, if you have a favorite newsreader that's not featured here, let us know in the comments!
When you find a story you like, you can open it full screen.
(Credit: CNET Networks)RSS Bandit is a free newsreader offering the standard three-pane interface with your feeds on the the left part of the interface, headlines on the upper right, and story summaries on the lower right. Clicking on a story opens the story in full-page view like a browser. With this type of setup, you can click through your feed list quickly and browse through the stories you want to read without shuffling through a bunch of browser bookmarks. One of the best things about RSS Bandit is the ability to detect feeds on a page. So when you find a site you like, you can use the Wizard to discover all available feeds before making your choice.
The basic three-pane design makes it easy to find the information you want.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Snarfer is another great free newsreader with a similar interface layout to RSS Bandit. This one comes with several feeds already set up for you to browse, but it's just as easy to add them on your own. What makes this app interesting is it includes a wizard you can set up to do complex searches on Craigslist and eBay so you'll be the first to know when a specific item becomes available. I also like how it offers a tabbed interface so you can get important stories on screen which you can browse when you're ready.
The multitude of viewing, sorting, and discovery options sets FeedBeast apart
(Credit: CNET Networks)FeedBeast is a shareware alternative (usually $18.95, but $5 for a limited time. Check the developer site for more info) which offers the standard three-pane interface, but is a bit more polished than the free offerings. Features like e-mail synchronization to get important news to your in-box and Word Watch, which lets you search for news via keywords, are handy additions. It comes with numerous sorting options so you can get to the exact information you're after. Also, getting new feeds from your favorite sites couldn't be easier with FeedBeast's one-click subscription feature.
If you're a news junkie like I am and you're sick of drowning in bookmarked favorites, download one of these apps. You'll quickly realize how much more efficient your daily news and information browsing can be with a good newsreader.
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Killer Download is a new feature on Download.com in which we'll present a new program each week. Most will be free, but some might be good enough that paying a low registration fee is well worth the cost. If you find you have a better option than the software featured, let us know in the comments!
What method do you use to get the news? For a long time, I used my Web browser and grabbed bookmarks when I found good news sites. But before long those bookmarks multiplied, making it difficult to find particular sites; I realized I had to find a way to organize them all. The most obvious method was to continue with a regular Internet browser and put similar sites into folders, calling them "News" and "Blogs" and "Software," or whatever category fit the bill. This method worked fairly well, but I never knew when any of the sites updated without actually going to the site and checking. Naturally, all sites don't update according to a schedule, so I quickly figured out that I needed to try something else.... Read more
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