NetNewsWire 2.x Beta
Category: Apple/Mac OS...
Posted Friday, February 18, 2005 at 09:41 PM [GMT-6]

[Update (2005-03-04): I continue to be impressed with 2.0b25. It provides a very competent browser-like interface, complete with tabs, if you wish to surf through your feeds without jumping to a standalone browser. It also allows you to open any link in your default browser. You can toggle the preference to open links either within NetNewsWire or your default browser, depending on your browsing habits. And for a beta version, albeit a pretty mature one, it's been quite stable...no freezes or other glitches.]

Ranchero Software has released version 2.0b25 of its NetNewsWire RSS aggregator (Mac only) and it fixes the biggest gripe I had with version 1.0: it now handles Atom feeds. It also handles Bloglines subscriptions, although that's not a big deal for me.

I'm still undecided as to whether a browser-integrated aggregator (like Sage for Firefox) is the way to go, as opposed to the standalone app like NetNewsWire. They each have their advantages. NetNewsWire is much more powerful (as it should be, considering it's not free), but it's not as convenient as opening the Sage sidebar.

Anyway, while I haven't really put the beta through the ringer, thus far it's playing very nicely with 10.3.8.