Newsgator - RSS Heaven

I have been using Newsgator (www.newsgator.com) for the past 2 years now and I love it.

Prior to Newsgator, RSS Bandit was my RSS reader of choice and served me well, but as my life requirements changed so did my reader requirements. I could no longer rely on a piece of software installed on my Windows computer to manage my ever-growing list of feeds. I began using Linux system more often and needed a cross platform solution. Plus if I read something at work I would have to remember to skip it at home since there was no communication between my work system and my home system. Eventually RSS Bandit added state tracking where I could upload the state of my feeds from one computer and on another system it would know that I had read a message and not present it again. But all of the coordination was difficult to setup, cumbersome, and annoying.

Eventually, I stumbled onto Newsgator which, for me, was a great mix of features, accessibility, and beauty. I was able to import all of my RSS feeds seamlessly, and being web-based Newsgator keeps track of which messages I have read or not. It's also available to any modern browser regardless of operating system. I can sort by date or group by feed. I can assign my own tags to articles, and I can save clippings for articles that really pique my interest.

One of my favorite features of Newsgator is being able to create folders to place feeds in so I can group things my way. For example I have 3 groupings at the top level that all of my feeds fit into. @Home, @Work, or News. This allows me to focus on different content depending on my location or mood. Within these groups I can sub-divide the categories further. For example, within my @Work category I have Scripting, Books, and Security. Some feeds are listed under @Work and not in a sub-category just yet. Within my @Home grouping I sub-divide into Blogs, Comics, Entertainment, and Health. The News grouping has, of course, Slashdot and Yahoo News (and during elections Yahoo Politics).

One feature that some might find annoying is the limit of 200 messages per feed. I enjoy this "feature" as anything more than 200 messages is just overwhelming to keep up with. I enjoy that the messages roll over and I no longer see older messages.

Newsgator allows me to select topics I want to read quickly and selectively, and it's free. Try it out. You will not be disappointed.