What do I need to read feeds?
Last Updated on Wednesday, 18 May 2011 00:27 | 
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If you want to browse and subscribe to feeds, you have many choices. Today, there are more than 2,000 different feed reading applications, also known as "news aggregators" (for text, mostly) or "podcatchers" (for podcasts). There are even readers that work exclusively on mobile devices.
Some require a small purchase price but are tops for ease-of-use and ship with dozens of feeds pre-loaded so you can explore the feed "universe" right away. Free readers are available as well; a search for "Feed reader" or "Feed aggregator" at popular search sites will yield many results.
You will need one of the following to read RSS feeds:
Modern web browser
Most modern browsers, including Firefox, Opera, Internet Explorer, Safari and Chrome automatically check for feeds when you visit a website, and display the orange RSS icon when they find one. Many of them allow you to add RSS feeds as a browser favourite or bookmark folder, automatically updating them with the latest content.
Web-based news reader
Web-based news readers check feeds and displays any new articles that have been added. They let you catch up with your RSS feed subscriptions from any computer, making this option useful if you want to access the feeds from multiple computers or devices.
Desktop news reader
Some email software allows you to read RSS feeds. In addition, there is dedicated news reader software available that you can download and install on your computer.
- Awasu (Windows)
- Feed Demon (Windows)
- Microsoft Outlook (Windows)
- Newz Crawler (Windows)
- NewsGator - FeedDemon 2.0 (Windows)
- NewsGator - Inbox for Microsoft Outlook (Windows)
- NewsGator - NetNewsWire (OS X)
- Firefox (via "Live Bookmarks" feature)
- Safari (feed support in the Apple OS X native browser)
- Pulp Fiction (OS X)
Podcast Readers