RSS Reader: Safari, Newsfire, or NetNewsWire?
by Nate
I’m beginning to tire of Safari’s rather clunky RSS handling and was wondering what readers here at the Hardmac blog use for RSS. Anyone have experience with Newfire or NetNewsWire?
Has anyone tried them all?
Please share your experiences.
February 12th, 2006 at 23:15 CET
NetNewsWire Lite is a very good reader.
I have tried (in their previous iterations maybe) quite a few, NewsFire and else (even BlogBridge).
Always back to the free no-frill NNW Lite. because of the seamless keyboard nav, and the cleanliness of it. And the “Open in browser in background”, which a simple right arrow triggers.
Safari RSS? You are joking, right? I mean, it is a very good intro to RSS and learning to grab your feeds. But once you get a few sites’ feeds, you need a real reader.
February 13th, 2006 at 13:02 CET
I don’t understand what there is not to like about the way Safari handles RSS, infact i hate the way the other browsers handle them, and everytime i try and use something else i expect a safari like look and when i don’t get it i bail.
February 16th, 2006 at 09:22 CET
Why not give David Watanabe’s NewsfireX a try? I really like his style: http://www.newsfirex.com
February 19th, 2006 at 23:09 CET
Netnewswire for me. Love it! Never bothered with Safari’s RSS handling.
February 20th, 2006 at 09:08 CET
I’m checking out NetNewsWire right now. It doesn’t seem to offer that much more than Safari’s RSS does though.
February 20th, 2006 at 10:23 CET
I’m satisfied with the combination of NetNewsWire and Safari, for now. NNW is long overdue for an update and I’m still waiting to see where it goes next since NewsGator acquired it.
I like the iTunes-like interface NewsMac Pro uses for organizing channels (feeds) and long ago submitted a suggestion for NNW to consider something similar. In NNW, a feed can only be in in one group (excluding Smart Groups), which limits how I’d like to organize them. I’d prefer if groups were similar to iTunes playlists, which are just different views of items in the main Library, but it makes managing dynamic attributes like refreshing and persistence trickier.
I have the impression NNW is the most stable of the Mac newsreaders. I can’t remember when it last crashed, if ever, with over 300 feeds now. That’s a big reason the other apps haven’t tempted me much; I’ve heard of more serious-sounding problems with them than NNW even though they’re less popular.
I’ve never tried NewsFire; the developer “politics” surrounding it have been a turnoff.
Obviously it’s best to give the apps of interest a serious trial before making up your mind. There might be a “must have” feature you discover that makes the choice obvious. Or maybe it’s more subjective, like which is most comfortably usable for you. It’s kind of like web browsers. People rave about Firefox but its XUL interface is awkward and gets in my way so I prefer Safari, Camino, and OmniWeb.
Oh, maybe stuff like support and whether the developer’s going to be around for awhile are totally important or completely irrelevant.
It would help focus responses if you’d mentioned a few specific things that matter most to you in a newsreader. Just asking readers to share their experiences is waaay too general. :-)
February 25th, 2006 at 02:25 CET
Newsfire has worke great for me. I tried Safari but it didn’t do it for me. It certainly cuts down on the time I surf the net, but greatly increases the amount of relevant stuff I read. Good App.
March 3rd, 2006 at 23:54 CET
Just saw this news:
Where we are with NetNewsWire 2.1
http://inessential.com/?comments=1&postid=3259
Are you still here, Nate?
March 7th, 2006 at 05:38 CET
Sorry, sjk, read your brilliant post and forgot to respond. I’v been lost in the hustle and bustle of the all too busy world.
I think Safari fits my needs pretty well in terms of function. It’s very accessible, very simple, and right there in the bookmarks bar for me. I can use the View All option or select individual feeds. I like the folder organization a lot.
My problem is the way it handles RSS feeds. On my old macs, it takes too long to open the feed, and the display of it is clunky in my eyes. I dislike the sidebar and the bar at the top is a waste of space. I just feel like it can be done better in a more streamlined manner.
I’m still trying out NNW (not as often as I’d like) and still have not reached a conclusion on whether I prefer it or not.
March 13th, 2006 at 22:39 CET
For a free, open source, Mac OSX RSS/Atom newsreader try Vienna (http://www.opencommunity.co.uk/vienna2.html). It’s rapidly getting a lot of attention.
March 27th, 2006 at 22:30 CEST
I use netvibes.com because if I’m going to browse the internet via RSS why not do it from my browser I dont get the idea of having a standalone RSS reader only to have to open you browser when you see a article you like to read more on.
April 4th, 2006 at 19:14 CEST
I run 10.2.8 and the next to last version of NNW/lite works very well on it. I was using NNW Lite for a year, then finally tried the 30-day demo.
After just a few hours I bought the app primarily because of the built-in browser. Not only is is wonderfully integrated and convenient, but it uses a later, more bug-free version of the tabbed browser code than Apple lets me use (Safari 1.0.3 if you’re running Jaguar).
It’s not perfect — there’s no visual way to know which feeds you’ve told to temporarily stop refreshing, for instance — but it’s rock solid and currently handles over 560 feeds for me.
May 26th, 2006 at 10:58 CEST
i have had bad experiance and good experiances let me explain
browsers i have used
1.firefox
2.safari
3.internet explorer 5.0.1
4.netscape
1. firefox
excellent web browser great for mac does more then safari and offers good compatibility with older and newer mac users
2.safari
sucks hardly compatible with any web pages except mac ones only no one else supports using safari any where on the web
needs a overhaul badly needs to be more compatible with more web pages
3.internet explorer 5.0.1
yes the older and the much more basic but consider that this is the only webbrowser that supports all web pages all flash content and works on mac os 9.2.2 and os x
4.netscape
rip off mac users have to pay 20.00 for netscape while windows users get it for free
bull ^&%&^%%^&
June 1st, 2006 at 21:33 CEST
I wish Entourage would support RSS feeds the way Outlook does in the new Office 2007 Beta (PC version). They’re right there, threaded next to your email and the rest of your various accounts/folders/stuff.
Have to admit, it made me a little jealous though otherwise Office 2007 beta is barely on par with Office 2004 on the Mac. Their new results-oriented “Ribbon” interface is a little weird, but actually kind of neat and useful.
Your blog is cool. I’m going to add a link to it from my blog:
LoudMac’s Pro Audio, Music & Mac Blog
Peace,
Brian McLeod
Miami, Florida
http://blog.loudmac.com
July 6th, 2006 at 10:11 CEST
I have bought NewsFire but I am not happy with it: buggy
I am trying NNW and, although it lacks the slick look of NF, I think it is generally better. It is centrainly very customizable. I like the Widescreen View (three columns) and the built in browser.
August 15th, 2006 at 01:47 CEST
Vienna has worked for me.
August 20th, 2006 at 12:23 CEST
I use the paid version of NetNewsWire. It is a decent application that installs itself as the default news reader. Clicking any RSS link in Safari will invoke NetNewsWire to capture the URL and prompt the user to accept the feed. NetNewsWire displays the feeds on the left, with a split screen for feed items (top) and feed content (bottom). Double clicking a feed item or a URL in a feed will launch the built in browser and take the user to the actual web page for that feed item.
November 24th, 2006 at 11:31 CET
No one here has mentioned any of the other web based newsreaders. I use Bloglines http://www.bloglines.com and also netvibes, but I am trying out http://www.newsisfree.com as well. The web based ones are great if you need to see the same feeds without having to synch two readers.
November 29th, 2006 at 11:08 CET
Problem with RSS Feed in WordPress.
I have a subdomain that I installed wordpress for another blog site, but the subdomain site's rss feed points to my parent site.
Can anyone come up with any suggestions?