In business, if you snooze, you lose. Sometimes just getting through your e-mail is time-consuming enough, let alone surfing your favorite Web sites for breaking news that can give you a competitive edge. With Really Simple Syndication (RSS), however, the news comes to you. Subscribe only to the sources you want, then filter those results by searching via keywords if you like.
Two basic varieties of newsreader exist. Most are standalone applications that run in the background on your desktop, automatically updating headlines regularly with newsfeeds from your subscribed Web sites and blogs. In this category, we look at Awasu, FeedDemon, and RSSReader, three popular standalone readers that offer free trials and paid premium versions.
A second group of newsreaders plugs in to applications already running on your PC. For instance, NewsGator works with Microsoft Outlook, populating Inbox folders with headlines from subscribed channels. Pluck, on the other hand, works with Internet Explorer.
Most of the readers we reviewed automatically remove old news items after a preset number of days. One complaint: When using the standalone apps' built-in Web browsers, pop-up windows, which are normally turned off in Internet Explorer, returned. This was not a problem, however, with Pluck or NewsGator, both of which use your default Internet Explorer to display full stories.
For even more newsreader selections, see Download.com.
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