NetNewsWire 3.0 for Macs was released within the past month and at least one of its new features may finally get me to upgrade from the free version and plunk down $30 for the full version.
One feature lacking in all the news readers I have reviewed (and I have looked carefully at most, if not all of the Mac versions) is an easy way to deal with feeds that I have already read or have no intention of reading. Most news readers have a preference setting where a person can set the number of days a feed will appear in the news reader, while a few have a default setting that cannot be changed. But there is no way to remove unwanted feeds while retaining the news feed subscription.
What this means is that for x-number of days the feeds remain visible in the news reader. If I have already read a feed or I am not interested in a batch of unread feeds I have no way to remove them from the reader. It makes reviewing new feeds more difficult while the list grows larger and new feeds are added to the top of the list.
NetNewsWire 3.0 has added a feature where feeds marked as read can be "hidden," which makes them disappear from the list. Instead of having 10-15 TechSurvivor feeds in the list I now see only the few new posts since I last refreshed the TS feed. It may seem like a little thing, but it makes a big difference in the usability of the news reader.
NetNewsWire is the most popular Mac news reader because it has features that are part of other news readers, but no other news reader combines them all into one package.
If you are someone like me who has a number of Web sites and online forums that they visit regularly but who wants to avoid having to visit each individually and scan them for new posts and additions, then NetNewsWire deserves a look. Some news readers are free, including NetNewsWire Lite 2.0, but they lack the more sophisticated features. But since NetNewsWire 3.0 has a 30-day free demo available, it is relatively easy to try out as many news readers as one wants to see if a basic news reader will be all that is needed. (Safari comes with a news reader capability but it has only the most basic controls and there are a number of free readers that are much more capable applications.)
The
RSS Learning Center at the NetNewsWire Web site explains the basic functions of a news reader and how it can simplify keeping up-to-date with your fave Web sites and forums.
