RSS Reader: NewsGator FeedDemon 2.6

http://www.newsgator.com/Individuals/Default.aspx

I've been so torn between keeping my RSS feeds online via Google Reader vs. a local installation, such as Omea. I love the way Omea looks, and how responsive it is after it loads, but I don't like the lengthy startup and shutdown time. Alternatively, I like Google Reader's ability to be accessed anywhere there is an Internet connection, but I'm not a fan of the interface.

What to do?

Well, now I can have the best of both worlds! NewsGator's RSS reader, FeedDemon has been available for quite awhile, but for a fee. Since this isn't "Confessions of a feeware junkie" *ahem*, I hadn't looked at it until now - because finally it is available for those of us budget-challenged geeks! It has been highly rated for pretty much the entire time it has been around, so this is great news.

FeedDemon allows me to maintain an online version of all my RSS subscriptions while being able to manage them through a localized client.

While not quite as full-featured (some might call it bloated) as Omea, FeedDemon still has a good amount of goodies to make it a world-class application.

I really like the way FeedDemon looks, and the response is very quick when browsing through my various feeds. I did notice that when I wanted to delete a subscription, the [del] key did not do the trick - you have to right-click and unsubscribe from the feed that way.

I would like to see a place for annotations in FeedDemon like Omea - this was a great way to comment on any news items that you collected, which is a must have for researchers.

Also, Omea had a neat browser plug-in feature so that when you came across a page with a feed embedded within it, you could right-click the page and 'subscribe in Omea'.

FeedDemon does support enclosures (in a way), and you can tell it where to save them using NewsGator's FeedStation software (which requires that you use your NewsGator account).

Watches

For instance, you can use the 'Watches' feature to create a filter of sorts, so if you want to keep track of any new blog posts that feature the words "Obama" or "Huckabee", then those posts will show up in the Watches folder.

Clippings

Clippings allows you to send individual blog posts to a specified Clippings folder (much like notes in Omea). This is great for researchers if they want to categorize specific posts that relate to a particular topic.

Dinosaurs

FeedDemon also has a Reports feature that allows you to quickly locate feeds that haven't been updated in x amount of days. Great for when you need to do a bit of housecleaning.

Import/Export

Of course, like just about every other quality feed reader on the market, you can import or export your feeds from/to OPML files, which allows you to move them from/to other reader programs.

There are a few more features, but I won't get into them here - I've covered the biggies already.

Likes:

• Synchronization of feeds to/from online NewsGator account - (major)
• Clean interface, quick response - (major)
• Very easy to use/understand - (major)

Dislikes:

• No Annotation feature - (major)
• Enclosures are downloaded using an additional program - (medium)
• Delete key does not unsubscribe from feeds - (minor)
• No plug-in for browsers - (minor)