Switching to Google Reader
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Ok, I give up. I’ve switched to Google Reader. I dislike web-based RSS readers in general, the primary reason being that they show items that I’ve already read. But the newer Ajax-based readers work a lot more like desktop readers, with the added benefit of being accessible from anywhere.
I was using NewsGator. I like that it plugs into Outlook and was better than the other Outlook options, plus it had a slick web reader version. But the Outlook integration was very poor at work; it may be due to our internet connection or might be Newsgator’s fault, but it was rarely able to update during the day. So since I found myself going to the web viewer most of the time anyway, I cancelled my paid account.
But yesterday even the web viewer started acting strangely. I went a day and a half with no updates, and that never happens. I have a few rarely-updated feeds, but Yahoo News, Eschaton, Slashdot, and a few others update a lot, and there was nothing in the list.
I’d played with Google Reader, and it’s good but wasn’t as usable as NewsGator. But they did a big update last month, and kicked it up several notches. It now allows you to mark a whole feed as read, updates periodically (no need to click Refresh), and has a ton of keyboard shortcuts. And I’m sure there’s plenty of momentum behind it, being Google and all, so it’ll only get better.
