Freeware
NetNewsWire: The RSS Aggregator that Should be Free
Developer: NewsGator
Version: 3.0
Price: $29.95 (Commercial), Free (Lite)
Download NetNewsWire (Commercial) Here.
Download NetNewsWire Lite Here.
Let me apologize for the deluge of Mac OSX programs this week. I’ve been compiling a very long list of all of the programs I plan to review well into the future and the Apple list was getting a bit out of hand. Also, since I write the majority of these reviews on my MacBook, it’s easy to just sit here and take screenshots and the like. Don’t worry, expect several Windows-only and Linux-only programs next week.
With that out of the way, let me present you with NetNewsWire, an RSS aggregator for OSX. NewsGator, the company that makes NetNewsWire, has been in the RSS business for quite some time now and also makes an aggregator for Windows - but that’s a different review.
There are two different flavors of NetNewsWire, the pay for version and the Lite version which is completely free of charge. I’ve been using the Lite version for awhile now, but for the review I decided to fire up the pay-for version too. I had assumed that both versions would be relatively the same - but boy was I wrong. The pay for version has a lot of extra features.
But, as you know, just because a product is filled with all kinds of cool gimmicks and gadgets does not make it a better program. Far from it in some cases. And so is the problem with NetNewsWire. It seems like it is trying to be too much. So you can see where I’m coming from, here are a few things that both the shareware and the freeware version have in common: Apple Mail look and feel, sync with NewsGator, subscriptions, groups, alerts when you’ve got new feeds, feed favicons, one click del.icio.us posting, printing, and all kinds of sharing features.
Now, remember, that list is of features shared by both the free and the commercial programs. The commercial program has far more features than that, including: a tool that finds old feeds, customizable dock badge colors, podcasting storage, search engine subscriptions, FTP sync, a widescreen view, and a few other things. Does anyone even care about these features? Don’t they all just seem like meaningless fluff?
Honestly, I could never justify forking over $30 USD for a list of such useless extras. After taking advantage of the 30 day trial period on the commercial version of NetNewsWire, I really can’t see why anyone would pay for the extra features and a program with a slightly more stylish design. It just doesn’t make any sense to me when there are so many other great programs for the Mac that are better worth your money.
Essentially, the Lite version of NetNewsWire offers most, if not all of the functionality you could ask for. And it’s free. It’s really no wonder that NewsGator tries to hide the link to NetNewsWire Lite on their website.
My advice for you is to compare the two products side by side for a month and see if you can justify paying the price premium for the commercial copy of NetNewsWire. I certainly couldn’t.
Shameless Self Promotion Alert: While you’re trying out these RSS aggregators, why not subscribe to Software Battle! by clicking on that neat orange RSS icon on the top right of my blog. Thanks!
Try NetNewsWire (Commercial) for Yourself.
Try NetNewsWire Lite for Yourself.
- Eric Norton
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