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Is Thunderbird the best RSS reader?

W

Wolfpup

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Sep 7, 2006
2,948
117
Just curious if anyone's used anything better. I've always thought RSS sounded like a neat idea, but could never stand how it was implemented...until Thunderbird 2.0. It lets you set it up just as though you were getting emails. Seems to work perfectly (with the one annoyance that I can't seem to get Firefox to pass it to Thunderbird automatically-at least not on Windows, but that's no big deal since it's not like I'm adding feeds very often).

Anything even better out there? This is going to be really different not having to check all these websites anymore!
 
Wolfpup said:
Just curious if anyone's used anything better. I've always thought RSS sounded like a neat idea, but could never stand how it was implemented...until Thunderbird 2.0. It lets you set it up just as though you were getting emails. Seems to work perfectly (with the one annoyance that I can't seem to get Firefox to pass it to Thunderbird automatically-at least not on Windows, but that's no big deal since it's not like I'm adding feeds very often).
Click to expand...

I use Vienna, it's free and very good, worth a try. HAS it's own inbuilt browser with tabs so if you want to read a story you can just double click on it and it opens without having to have a dedicated browser launched.

To set them up as a default RSS reader either check the RSS readers preference or safari's.


Wolfpup said:
Anything even better out there? This is going to be really different not having to check all these websites anymore!
Click to expand...

I find it weird going to websites nowadays.
 
What's wrong with checking websites, they usually put a lot more effort in presenting information than RSS ever can. (With the exceptions of blogs, that have a horrible layout).

Anyway, I haven't tried Thunderbird or Vienna, but I like Safari's way of presenting it + the summarise feature is awesome.
 
I use Newsfire from the Macheist bundle, and I like it a lot. Whether it's the best thing out there I don't know.
 
Yeah i'm in the same boat, i've always kinda known RSS but never really bothered using it, but now with Thunderbird I haven't looked at some of my favorite blogs site since i've gotten it.

My only problem thus far is that when I click the RSS thing on Camino, instead of adding it to my subscriptions, it composes a mail.
 
Objectivist-C said:
Because it's more efficient to open a feedreader and scan headlines than to check 37 websites on a regular basis?
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A lot of people still don't get RSS. They click on the RSS icon in safari and don't get to see the power of aggregation. Apple needs to make aggregating a bunch of feeds more obvious to those who haven't really grasped it yet.
 
Here's my standard take on RSS:

Less than 10-15 feeds? Safari's RSS capabilities will probably meet your needs.

More than 15-20 feeds, but don't want to pay for your feed reader? Vienna is definitely the way to go.

If you want something similar to Vienna with more features and a notable amount more polish, I recommend NetNewsWire.

Don't like the 3-pane spin on RSS that Vienna/NNW provide? Then take a look at NewsFire or NewsLife (I've heard NewsLife is still a little buggy, though).

Me? I use NewsFire for ~150 feeds. Works a peach for me.
 
I just use Opera for all my needs, i keep it constantly open, so its perfect for my e-mail, RSS and browsing. No need to run three different programs.
 
osirisX said:
I use NetNewsWire Lite. I like the 3 pane interface and general polish of the app.
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Good call - I should have mentioned that :) NNW Lite (<- download link) is a free alternative to NNW, although a few of the features it lacks (namely, article flagging) are features I consider to be necessary. That's why I prefer Vienna to NNW Lite.
 
On the subject of best RSS readers.. anyone know what uses the least amount of system resources?

I'm on an older machine (see sig) and memory is tight so I don't really want to run 40mb of ram on an RSS reader..

I only really want to get updates every half hour or so on blogs i read often, and to display how many new articles I have in the dock.. nothing more..
 
KurtangleTN said:
On the subject of best RSS readers.. anyone know what uses the least amount of system resources?

I'm on an older machine (see sig) and memory is tight so I don't really want to run 40mb of ram on an RSS reader..

I only really want to get updates every half hour or so on blogs i read often, and to display how many new articles I have in the dock.. nothing more..
Click to expand...

If it's fewer resources you're after, you might look at something web-based (Google Reader) or use Safari's built-in capabilities.

Most stand-alone readers can start to eat a fair amount of RAM if they're left open for long periods of time.
 
Interesting feedback everyone! I'd love if Apple integrated RSS into Mail as well as Thunderbird does.

That Google Reader looks like it may be kind of an online version of what Thunderbird does too. I may have to try that until I get my laptop (where I'll always just have one machine to check).
 
epochblue said:
If it's fewer resources you're after, you might look at something web-based (Google Reader) or use Safari's built-in capabilities.

Most stand-alone readers can start to eat a fair amount of RAM if they're left open for long periods of time.
Click to expand...

Hmm, damn me being on Panther, you know with the apps I run that use ram on for stuff I could have in Tiger.. I probably wouldn't any noticeable slowdowns.
 
KurtangleTN said:
Hmm, damn me being on Panther, you know with the apps I run that use ram on for stuff I could have in Tiger.. I probably wouldn't any noticeable slowdowns.
Click to expand...

I haven't messed around with it much, but isn't Safari's RSS stuff pretty much just like Firefox's? Like basically "live bookmarks"? I don't find what Firefox does terribly useful. For some things occasionally, but usually I want them to be handled like email as Thunderbird does. (I think IE 7 for Windows handles RSS feeds pretty much how Firefox does too.)
 
Wolfpup said:
I haven't messed around with it much, but isn't Safari's RSS stuff pretty much just like Firefox's? Like basically "live bookmarks"? I don't find what Firefox does terribly useful. For some things occasionally, but usually I want them to be handled like email as Thunderbird does. (I think IE 7 for Windows handles RSS feeds pretty much how Firefox does too.)
Click to expand...

I think it is too, however Firefox is really slow.. it feels ancient after using Safari and Camino for awhile.
 
I'm a big fan of NewsFire because it doesn't take up much space, has nifty keyboard shortcuts, is simple to understand and configure (easier I find than Safari) and does it all with a bit of eye-candy and Mac style and panache.
 
elppa said:
I'm a big fan of NewsFire because it doesn't take up much space, has nifty keyboard shortcuts, is simple to understand and configure (easier I find than Safari) and does it all with a bit of eye-candy and Mac style and panache.
Click to expand...

Mmmmm....OSeXy eye candy, indeed.
 
KurtangleTN said:
I think it is too, however Firefox is really slow.. it feels ancient after using Safari and Camino for awhile.
Click to expand...

I probably haven't used Safari that much, but overall I still like Firefox better, and it seems fast to me (even on my pokiest G3 :) ). I used Camino briefly when there was that bug in the OS X version of Firefox for an update, but since that got fixed, I haven't really seen the point of Camino. Seems like the same thing, only not as up to date.

osirisX said:
Well, Mail in Leopard has RSS capabilities.
Click to expand...

Cool. That's what I was hoping, just because Mail seems niftier than Thunderbird (not that Thunderbird is bad by any means-it's darned impressive, even more so for being open source!)
 
Here's a question-how do programs like Thunderbird actually handle RSS?

I'm guessing when you "delete" items, they're actually still having to store info about the item, so that they know you've already read it. Otherwise the same item would keep poping up every time.

iTunes actually doesn't seem to handle RSS correctly (or else tons of podcasters don't do their feeds right). I CONSTANTLY get duplicates in iTunes. Often from months or years earlier.

It's so bad that I don't let iTunes auto-update anymore. I manually click the refresh thing, and then manually click "get" on all the new podcasts. Almost every single time at least one or two podcasts lists old content.

So far though, Thunderbird seems to be working right (although I did notice today that it didn't list all the new stuff when I first launched it until I manually refreshed, even though I have it set to check for new stuff at launch...)
 
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