Since my favorite news aggregator, FeedDemon, is out of the beta phase and has started costing money, I’ve decided to take a look around at the alternatives before I invest the $30.
In general, I have a few criterias for an aggregator to stay installed:
Furthermore I’d like it to not look like something a developer designed just because he needed it to have a GUI.
Following are my initial thoughts after spending upwards of 5 minutes with each aggregator. None of these are fullfledged, thorough reviews, merely hastily formed opinions. With the amount of aggregators out there I need to be hooked within a very short timespan or the program gets uninstalled and I am on to the next one.
Decent, appears a bit simple. Can categorize feeds into folders. Space to go to next unread item. Unappealing looks.
The first time around, this aggregator is a jungle of tips and hints windows. No “Go to next unread”-key? Uses internal browser. No bulk import from OPML.
No import from OPML. Opens links in the internal browser.
Looks unappealing, bordering to ugly. Imports OPML just fine. Apparently no “Go to next unread”-key.
Wouldn’t start at all, apparently due to a lockfile existing in the user directory of another user on the machine…
Imports from OPML just fine. Space navigates to next unread item. Feeds can be categorized into folders, but opens links in internal browser
Easy import from OPML. The channels are divided into folders. Key for navigating to next unread item, but opens links in internal browser.
Opens links in my default browser. Space doubles as a “move to next unread key” and “page down through entry” - this will take some getting used to. The way of showing relations between linked entries is quite interesting. So far my biggest pet peeves seem to be that the text in the UI flickers when switching entries and the minimize-on-close sucks.
No import of my OPML file.
Of the above aggregators SharpReader seems like the only one that might make the cut. The rest all appeared to fail on at least one of my criterias. Looks like I will be giving Sharpreader a test drive for a while, however FeedDemon is still the superior (Windows) news aggregator for me.
NewzCrawler can open links in default browser.
If you mean the shift+click or right-click-select-in-menu-way, then indeed it does.
No, you can double-click the news item and it will be opened in your default web browser. NewzCrawler is customizable and you can configure it to suite your needs.
I talk about why there is no "next unread item" key here.
Import from OPML has been in for ages - it's in the File menu.
OK, so maybe the "here" link didn't work. Try here:
http://www.awasu.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=990#990
Sigh...
Newzcrawler: On second try, I see I can open the actual news item and links in an external browser by doing something extra. Unfortunatly being a lazy bastard, I don't want to be doing that something extra on every single damn click - especially when there are other aggregators that does exactly what I want in this respect.
Awasu: Reasonable arguments for not having an "go to next unread item" key. However, it doesn't change that it isn't there and that it makes me look elsewhere.
About OPML import in Awasu, I don't recall exactly why I wrote there was no bulk import, but I think it might be the aggregator that wanted me to click roughly 4 times per feed in the OPML? Sorry, with upwards of 100 feeds, that might as well be no OPML import.
I just wanted to say that you did some good work on comparing the features of the free news readers. I spent much of this afternoon looking for a good free one for Mac OS X here at work, but was wondering if there was a good one for Windows for when I go home. BTW, the one I found for Mac OS X was NetNewsWire Lite. I did not originally find this on the NetNewsWire web site, but instead got it from Version Tracker. In any case, I will give SharpReader a try tonight when I head home on your recommendation. Thanks.
Nice summary, looking forward to see your opinions on Opera 7.5's built-in newsreader. It is basically the same UI as the mail/newsgroups client. Obviously it will not be opening links in another program because Opera still supposes it is mainly being used for browsing and the other features are add-ons (AFAIK the users have not been demanding this feature yet so I guess most people use the mail client in addition to the browser.)
PS 7.5 is currently in beta, check forum on my.opera.com for status.