RSS Feedreader - Version 3 now available

If you are looking for a PC based program to collate and read RSS feeds, but find some of the packages confusing and overwhelming, try Feedreader (http://www.feedreader.com/). It is fairly basic but the latest version (3.0 ) has most of the essentials.



It is simple to set up and use and the smart feeds enable you to set up rules so that each time your feeds are updated they are automatically searched for terms or phrases. Copies of the items are then placed in a separate folder. For example I have smart feeds for various companies, products, people and events.

Important: when you install Feedreader go into Tools, Options, General. Under Notifications, make sure 'Display notification' is set to "Do not display notification" and 'If not set in feed then..' is set to "Do not allow feeds to show notification by default". Also untick the 'Play sound' box. Otherwise you will end up with irritating pop-up boxes beeping all over your screen when your feeds update. If you want alerts/notifications for individual feeds or smart folders you can set those up using the Edit feed option.

The great thing about these programs is that if you want to change to something else you can always export your existing list of feeds to an OPML file and then import it into your new program. You can't, though, export your filters or smart feeds. They have to be set up from scratch.