My Search for the best Online Feed Readers

I had decided to go for some RSS readers. I’m off late reading so many blogs and thought it would be good if I have a RSS manager for me.

I use Firefox so I looked for RSS extension where I can get to see all my subscribed blogs/sites. I tried Wizz RSS Firefox Extension, but it was too complicated and more over I couldn’t customize to me needs.

Then I looked for some 3rd party application where I get to subscribe to RSS feeds. I tried Feedreader, but it’s takes up a lot of memory. Moreover I prefer to check the stuffs with FX itself instead of launching a new application everytime.

So finally I decided to scout of Online Feed Readers that can keep track of my subscribed blogs and also manage them. All the Feed Readers are free unless stated. Let’s get started…

Bloglines

Bloglines is not AJAX. Has unwanted items like tags. It’s the only service that integrate feeds and emails. Bloglines lets me set up email addresses in the form of username.digits@bloglines.com; emails are sent to these addresses are displayed in the same way that feeds are.

You get Mobile access. You can also but some how I didn’t like the look and feel of the site along with it’s interface; Important things are not there where it ought to be.

FeedLounge

I didn’t even try. It’s not free. It’s “just” $5/month.

Google Reader

At first I didn’t like Google Reader, but after I started using it, it’s somewhat better. It’s simple and straight forward. but it took me sometime to get organize my subscription.

Google Reader lacks one huge feature - the ability for the User to be able to select what feeds I want to read next. the interface is a nightmare if you subscribe to a lot of feeds. Took me some to get feeds categorized (labels as Google calls it). It displays only item from the blog at a time, so it loads faster. Scrolling also is less because of this. Even otherwise I find Google Faster than most of the other Readers.

NewsAlloy

It got a Gmail like look and feel. It got load of features.

One problem is that I couldn’t check the direct post if I wanted to view. It’ll take some time to get used and be comfortable using this.

NewsGator Online

They got one Free package and another paid package (19.95$ per year).

We can add new feeds by either “Browse by Category” or “Enter a Search Term”. Not the usual add direct URL method is not employed.
It took me some time to even add new folders.

It’s not AJAX as well, when most of the RSS Feed Readers are AJAXified, it’s little irritating when I find the page loads every time I perform some actions.

Newshutch

This was the first Reader that I tested on, even before I started to scout for more readers. A very easy to use. Easy to categorize. We can drag-drop a feed from one category to another - which I dint notice in most of the readers. Moreover we have the option to show the feeds for the period of time we need.

It’s little slow when compared to other Reader that I tried, but IMO it’s still easy to use and customize. Most of all it does what we all want. Read the post. Fully AJAXified Online web RSS reader.

Netvibes

The Good thing about NetVibes is that they allow personalized pages. you don’t need to sign up as well (good for lazy bums like me!). You can modify move modules, add new RSS/ATOM feeds, add your own notes, add new tab (useful when you categorize). You can even change the colors of the modules and name the page!

But the one problem that I found was when I want to read any of the feeds, we get a new window which will be bad if the post is long and will require a lot of scrolling.

Rojo

Rojo incorporates a lot of the best stuff about Digg, Memorandum, del.icio.us, etc. into an all-in-one application. You can also rate the post, shows how much people have subscribed to a particular fed via Rojo and more such fancy features.

In Web-based RSS Readers, you can tag a post with the keywords, view what others have tagged. Rojo does it perfect, but I don’t like this. It does not do what we really want. Read the post. You just have the title of the post, to read the post, you need to visit the original article.

Look at a similar comparison at TechCrunch which has also reviewed Web based Online Feed readers with features chart. Overall, TechCrunch test shows that Google Reader and FeedLounge are the fastest in performance. Bloglines and Rojo are the best choice if you are looking for a feature rich application (and Rojo blows Bloglines away on “web 2.0″ type features).

Final Verdict
RSS is the next best thing that makes web 2.0 exiting. It’s so easy and useful that you should not fail to try it out if you have never used RSS feeds before. I’m must accept that before I started to search for RSS feed reader, I never knew anything about RSS! Now I’m a big fan of RSS!! Imagine this - I keep track over 15 sites in a single place using RSS feeds.

After using all the web based Online RSS feed Readers and some more (like Yahoo!) I feel that it all depends on your likings. Having a AJAX based Readers is good and less annoying. I love to have a Reader that is clutter free and does the job fine without any fuss. In that respect I feel Newshutch is the best Online RSS feed reader. Google Reader comes second in this respect. The only problem with Google Reader is that managing and customizing a large amount of subscription will be a tiring task.

If you want something more than a RSS reader and need something with many fancy features and all the jazz, then I recommend Rojo. If you want something like a portal with all you favorite sites, then NetVibes is good, if you don’t make small reading window.

Many people still are afraid of RSS and feeds (including myself!) but once you give it try, you’ll really like it. Try it now and if you glad you used it, then save me a cookie!!