RSS OWL – Update

Never particularly happy with RSS readers on most platforms, I have settled on RSS Owl.  I only read my feeds on linux so Windows compatibility isn’t all that important, but it’s there (Mac too).

It’s java-based, which is generally a bad thing in my book, as you’re just adding another layer of complexity to slow things down and cause further problems (it’s always sunny, except over my house).

Previously I tried Liferea and Akregator (KDE), neither of which really lit my fire.   Again, I’m not looking for too complex a program.. I just want a non-browser, non-webOS, reader with tags so I can categorize saved articles.  You’d be surprised at how difficult a set of requirements this is.

So yes, it’s a bit slow starting up.  Ok, it’s very slow starting up.  But once it comes up, it’s rock-solid.  It has a ton of options that you can configure – way more than most.  You don’t have to do much, though, to get it running after you import or create your feeds.  You can do maintenance on a global or per-feed basis, which is very cool.

The good folks at RSS Owl just made available for download version 2.0 RC1.  There is even more functionality included.  The social media folks will love the ability to share feeds.  Antisocial media folks (me!) don’t have to turn that one on.  It will aggregate RSS, ATOM, and RDF feeds.

WHAT HAVE YOU NOTICED?

It comes up a little faster.  There are more toolbar options and configs.  It’s still stable as hell.  It seems to gather the feeds faster.

What I find really weird is that there used to be a right-click option to copy the URL of a story and it’s no longer there.  This is a real PITA when I need the URL for this blog.

IN CLOSING

All in all I highly recommend RSS Owl if your needs are similar to mine.  Even if they aren’t, it’s free and worth the download.  Give it a shot.