Another Newsreader Goes Free
March 1st, 2008 (8:34am) Mike Gunderloy 9 CommentsTweet This
Possibly feeling the pressure from the giveaway of the NewsGator client applications, Mac OS X RSS reader NewsFire is now free. Unlike the NewsGator giveaway, this one doesn’t involve the company collecting your attention data, since NewsFire doesn’t have any synchronization or online piece.
NewsFire enjoys a reputation as the most beautiful of the OS X newsreaders, so this will be good news for those who like the shiny operating system. The question, though, remains the same as we posed in our coverage of the earlier giveaway: can any client-side newsreader make serious market inroads against online alternatives like Google Reader these days?
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I love Newsfire. It’s the newreader I used most of the time and despite what people say I like a desktop newsreader more than Google’s online newsreader. It just seems to work “cleaner” as far as showing unread messages.
I’ll definitely be spreading the word about Newsfire. I originally got Newsfire as part of the original Macheist promotion. At the time I saw it as an addition incentive because I bought into Macheist because of Texmate yet I use Newsfire constantly.
One thing desktop newsreaders can do that Google Reader cannot is read private feeds behind the firewall. Many software development tools and intranet apps are producing feeds these days. Google Reader can’t reach those feeds, so local newsreaders like Sage, Safari RSS or Newsfire are necessary.
I like the simple Design of Sage Firefox Plugin. It stays at the sidebar of my browser and I can organise everything with folders.
I tried Google Reader a few times but can’t see the advantage of such a huge reading-system.
“can any client-side newsreader make serious market inroads against online alternatives like Google Reader these days?”
No, no they can’t. I need my rss feeds to be as ubiquitous as my email, not anchored to a desktop app installed on a particular machine somewhere. I love that google reader has a mobile interface, and even a very good Wii interface too. My feeds go where I go, along with my tags and starred items.
i just stumbled upon this new news aggregator: newsflashr.com – business week is saying that it’s “faster than a speeding bullet”, i give it a spin and was not disappointed
From a productivity point of view, Google Reader is becoming to slow for me. I was sad enough to observe the ratio of reading to waiting, and Google Reader doesn’t keep up with speed reading – that could be the latency of my Internet connection, or the speed of the code of course. Otherwise it is great. I’ll give NewsFire a try!
Jamin, I switched away from Google Reader for the same reason (now using NetNewsWire). Google Reader is great for under 300 feeds, more than that and it really bogs down.
This is a great app made even better because it’s free. I work for NewsGator but what’s good for users is good for every company in this space.
To the question about Google Reader, I would encourage everyone to look at the usage data carefully because online vs. desktop RSS reader share has been pretty static for quite a while.
My favorite news reader is FeedReader at http://www.feedreader.com/ . I really like its ease of use and unobtrusive format.
Barbara