RSS Feed Readers - Benefit from Free Simple Syndication Readers
RSS feed readers are a great way to save yourself lots of time while getting all of the content that you want from the internet. RSS is something that has the internet world buzzing, as it has exploded in popularity and expanded a great deal over the last several years. Before delving into the multitude of available feed readers for RSS, it is important to understand what RSS actually is, as few take the time to properly explain it.
What is RSS?
RSS, most commonly referred to as Real Simple Syndication (although what the initials stand for can vary), is a tool to get more content out to more people. A website with RSS capabilities will send visitors and readers who subscribe to their content summaries and updates of information, new articles, new blog posts and any other changes. The benefits of this are that the users can get all of the information they want without having to search around for it from website to website, checking for new content, and that the websites who distribute their content in this fashion gain more and easier exposure.
Types of Feed Readers
There are dozens, if not hundreds, of available RSS feed readers available to users for free. All of these different RSS aggregators or readers can be broken down into two categories.
Web-based: These applications are distributed online and used remotely from a hosted website and typically used within a web browser meaning that you do not need any other software.
Client Software: These aggregators need to be downloaded onto your computer and are either a part of a larger piece of software or a stand alone piece of software for reading RSS feeds. Because these are larger, downloadable software applications they may be more complex in both design and function.
Among those two different breeds of aggregators are, as mentioned, plenty of options to choose from. Some of the more popular RSS readers include:
- Google Reader: Google Reader is a web-based reader that can be used online and offline. Offline usage means the stored feeds can be read when you are not connected to the internet and when online they are updated once again. Other options and features include the ability to label feeds into different groups, search and sort results by relevance and more.
- Bloglines: Bloglines is another popular web-based aggregator that is touted as being both sophisticated and easy to use. It is easy to share your feeds with other users and search for feeds, blogs and articles.
- Internet Explorer 7: The web browser IE7 comes with software for RSS feeds. While you do not need to download separate software, you do need the IE7 software for this functionality, making it a client software based RSS aggregator. The IE7 RSS reader is easy to view as part of your web browser making it very convenient for many users.
- RSSReader: RSSReader is a client software aggregator for easy viewing and retrieval of RSS feeds. One feature is the notification of new feeds that it has picked up with a popup in the system tray.
- Safari: Safari is an internet browser developed by Apple for Mac computers, although it is now available to computers operating on a Windows platform. The Safari browser has an aggregator that is completely integrated into all of the other features of the browser itself, making it convenient and powerful.
- My Yahoo!: My Yahoo! has a web-based reader that is the most used RSS feed reader currently available. That is due in part to the availability of Yahoo’s extensive collection of news services and articles that you can search through, as well as Yahoo’s development and expansion into a focus on other Web 2.0 technologies.
- Planet aggregator: Planet is a web-based RSS Feed reader that displays blogs from a particular community on one page, making it easy to find and read through related topics at once.
Which RSS feed reader you use is of course entirely up to yourself. These are just a handful of the vast amount of aggregators at your disposal. You will need to make your decision based on factors such as ease of use, sharing and organization capabilities, user-friendly interfaces and individual preferences.
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