FeedDemon - 14 days

I've been using FeedDemon for two weeks now. Here are my thoughts:

• + I have two machines so the way sync'ing just happens is great.
• + Gives me access to both internal and external feeds in one place. When I was using Google Reader I started ignoring Bandit and missed internal updates for extended periods.
  
• + Reports to help me manage dead feeds. Probably comparable, although quite different, to Google Reader.
  
• + Clip folders have given a bit more structure and context to posts that are of interest. I never really used the tagging in Google Reader.
• - The toolbar for each feed (to flag, share, mark read etc) is at the top of the feed, so I keep scrolling up and down.
• +- I initially missed the auto-mark-read-as-I-scroll feature of Google Reader, but now I'm not so sure. I quite like being in control of when feeds are marked read.
• - I would to have the option for links to open in new tabs by default, instead I have to remember to click on the little icon next to the feed title. I guess once in the habit I won't mind this so much.
  
• + Prefetch seems an excellent feature, although I haven't needed to use it yet.
  
• - The keyboard shortcuts seems a bit odd. Ctrl-Shft-A to mark a feed as read, Ctrl-R to mark the whole folder of feeds as read. On the plus side you can configure all the keyboard shortcuts.
• - FeedStation doesn't auto clean up on a per feed basis. Some podcasts are daily, some weekly or less frequent. I use Juice and will continue to do so.

So the big question. Google Reader or FeedDemon? Nyah, it's an easy one. FeedDemon, and for this one reasons (or is it really two) above all else:

• Combined internal/external with the sync'ing between machines (at least for the external feeds)

FeedDemon - first impressions

Having used RSS Bandit for over 2 years I recently became a Google Reader convert, largely because of the ability to read it from any machine. What I missed was the offline stuff and I still needed to keep Bandit for internal feeds. So with the announcement from Newsgator that FeedDemon is now free I thought I'd give that a go.

I like the interface, it's clean. I kind of miss the three pane view of Bandit (UPDATE: I discovered you can have a three pane view in FeedDemon too), but then there's more space for the posts. What I really miss is the posts being marked read as I browse down the newspaper view (both Google Reader and Bandit have this feature), I have to keep remembering to mark the items read.

The alert message is attractively implemented and I think the fade is better than the toaster animation of Bandit that jerks my screen when my machine is busy. I like the ability to get alerts syndicated every 30 mins rather than when they arrive.

One of the killer features that kept me on Google Reader is sharing feeds I find interesting. These pipe straight into the RSS Reader widget on my blog. I can do the same with Newsgator online, and now I can do it through FeedDemon. I created a few categories for clippings - architecture, social software and notable; but what do I pipe into my blog. I can use Yahoo Pipes to join the feeds. I like that I can clip web URLs and not just feed items.

I don't like the fact that the toolbar for each feed (mark read, flag, delete, clip etc) is at the top of the feed. I only know what I want to do once I've read it! Doh!

In all other respects there doesn't seem to be much to choose between the three. I'll shun Google Reader for two weeks and see how I get on.

Goodbye Google Reader

Having blogged how I nearly dumped RSS Bandit I found out today that RSS Bandit has a minor upgrade recently and one of the things Dare has fixed is the integration with NewsGator. Although I've continued to use Bandit I have also started using Google Reader because of the social emergent behaviour - I can tag items I like and they feed straight into this blog. What Google lacks in this arena (at least as far as I can discover) is any way to see who else has shared a feed I've shared. If I recall NewsGator had a lot of good emergent features - UPDATE: guess I recall wrong; I can't see any emergent features.

Looks like the honeymoon period with Google Reader may be over.

UPDATE: Ok, so I can't decide between Google and NewsGator. I'll continue to use both for while. If only RSS Bandit was able to sync with Google Reader I'd be happy, it's far and away a better experience (and faster!) than NewsGator.


Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life - RSS Bandit + NewsGator Online: Your Feeds on the Desktop and on the Web

RSS Bandit + NewsGator Online: Your Feeds on the Desktop and on the Web

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I nearly dumped RSS Bandit

I think that Google Gears is one of the most exciting developments around at the moment. It's a library that anyone can use to build offline capabilities into their web based application. Firefox is doing something similar for FFv3, but fortunately working with Google on creating a standard interface - which would mean an application would work irrespective of which (Firefox or Google) offline library was in use. This is going to transform our use of the web.

Well, Google's Feed Reader (Google Reader) now has offline capabilities using Google Gears. It was the lack of this capability in web based readers that motivated me to push a desktop feed reader as our standard - and we ended up with RSS Bandit. So I gave it a go and it one feature that I wish RSS Bandit has - it shows links that haven't had postings for a while... dead blogs. This feature greatly enhances how you manage information sources, keeping the feeds trim.

I was preparing to ditch RSS Bandit and try Google Reader for a few weeks to see how I got on, when I discovered that Google Gears won't install on a machine inside a firewall. So I could do this at home, but not in the office. Doh!

Although this might sound like I nearly found an RSS Bandit Killer, that is not the case. The biggest remaining weakness of online readers like this is that they cannot access internal feeds.