NewsGator has made a HUGE unexpected step today by releasing their RSS news readers for free. That includes NetNewsWire (Mac), FeedDemon (Windows), and NewsGator Go (Blackberry, Java Mobile, and Windows Mobile). That’s right, they are all FREE now.
What’s even better is that all of these clients synchronize with NewGator’s online service, which can be used to read news anywhere you have access to the Internet. Some time ago NewsGator also created an iPhone-based mobile reader for optimized reading on the smaller screen, and that can be accessed from http://m.newsgator.com.
That’s not all either. They are also releasing new versions of all their RSS products! Here are some of the new features from NetNewsWire and FeedDemon:
- NetNewsWire 3.1 – New user interface, performance improvements, archive items (a.k.a. save them to your hard dive), and more.
- FeedDemon 2.6 – Includes a panic button for clearing out some older unread items, some user interface enhancements, performance improvements, inline searching, attention reporting, and more.
We have been using FeedDemon for quite awhile (we’re actually paid customers), and it is by far the best feed reader for Windows. It can handle hundreds of feeds without stuttering, and the fact that it’s now free makes it irresistible! It’s time to go get NetNewsWire (Mac), FeedDemon (Windows), or NewsGator Go (Blackberry, Java Mobile, and Windows Mobile).
Thanks for the tip Radu!
Welcome to SaaS arena, Newsgator!
A couple of years ago this would have been great but, with Google Reader I don’t have a need for a desktop feed reader.
I have a question along those lines. What are the benefits to a desktop reader verses online ones (specifically google reader)?
I suppose a desktop reader would have the advantage of speed.
Not everyone has DSL and it seems that the internet will slow down…
FeedReader was nice but i gave up on it when they started charging for upgrades that… well anyway, just like CoryC wrote here, “A couple of years ago this would have been great but, with Google Reader I don’t have a need for a desktop feed reader.”
Pretty cool, so is it similar to RSSOwl?
A desktop reader is often used for a variety of reasons. We use FeedDemon because we have control over how fast our content is updated, can set desktop alerts on a per feed basis, and the extensive keyboard shortcut customization.
For example, when we get going in the morning and check our feeds the first thing we do is refresh them. It takes about 30 seconds for FeedDemon to go out and get all of the new content from about 250 feeds that we are currently subscribed to. That way we have the latest information, whereas the news in Google Reader can be updated as little as each hour.
Yes, it is similar. One thing that I like better than RSSOwl is the extensive keyboard customization options.
This is good news for quite a few folks.
I’ve never been comfortable with a desktop RSS reader, however I did like Feed Demon when I did a trial of it a long time ago.
I still much prefer to use a browser-centric RSS reader.
In the past I was a die-hard Sage Add-on RSS feed reader for Firefox.
But then I found NewsFox. [addons.mozilla.org]
It whoops the pants off Sage (and seeing how Sage hasn’t been updated in about a year that wasn’t too hard).
It leaves me wondering whether syncing with NewsGator will be free too. My NewsGator licence (free for 2 years when I bought FeedDemon) will expire in March…
Nevermind, I’ve been told the syncing is also free now. Should’ve installed version 2.6 before asking questions :mrgreen:
Thanks for the info! I was looking into all of news gators products and I think I’ll have to try it. I like the idea that all their products sync together so you don’t read the same news over and over again. At home I have a Vista machine that I would use Feed Demon for. My wife is getting a MacBook Pro (waiting for MacWorld first…) that we could use NetNewsWire on. And at work, I use Outlook all day, so I could use NewsGator Inbox. It would be nice to test how they all work together.
Yep, actually i’m getting into it and there’s definitely quite a few good reasons to take a second look at it. Sync with NewsGator is wonderful asset.
Thanks for the tip Ryan!
Looks like you’ll be putting it to the ultimate test. I would love to hear how it all works out.
Nick Bradbury offers solid reasons to prefer the Desktop software:
[nick.typepad.com]
After few days of using FeedDemon and GreatNews together I can say that I will continue to use GreatNews (freeware). At some feeds, I get new items in second with GreatNews, in hours with FeedDemon. The notification windows just say the feed, not the item title. It looks a little better than GreatNews, but lose at other points. I wait GreatNews (in the following release) to implement “remember open tabs” as in FeedDemon. Than GreatNews will totally defeat FeedDemon.
Here’s the thing about the update frequency. If you have your feeds synchronized with Newsgator the fastest your feeds will refresh will be every 30 minutes. If you disable synchronization, which I’ve done, you can do it as fast as 5 minute intervals.
@Radu: actually, that’s not correct. You can tell FeedDemon to update synched feeds as frequently as every five minutes – just select Tools | Synchronization Options, then adjust the polling frequency.
@Ryan and Nick: I did previously set up the update to 5 minutes. Still, in FeedDemon I received for some feeds the news after HOURS (!!!) and not minutes or seconds as in GreatNews. (The feeds were FeedBurner feeds, so it’s not a problem about them.) For me this is a serious problem and FeedDemon goes down…
Ryan, disabling the synchronization made a progress :oops: . Still, I am looking now at a feed. An article wrote hours ago is in GreatNews but not in FeedDemon. And F5 has no effect. Anyway, on other feeds the speed is much better. I will keep few days more GN and FD running.
I remember having the same issue, and I believe I set the synchronization interval to 5 minutes, then disabled it, and then set the overall update interval to 5 minutes (by right-clicking on the main Subscriptions folder). That gets me near-instant feed updates.