When it comes to web based RSS readers, Google Reader is certainly the most popular – and the most efficient too.

It offers a lot of features and has an amazing set of keyboard shortcuts which lets you browse through a long list of feeds quite seamlessly.

Having said that, I continue to explore its features everyday and I decided to list out some features here, which I think may not be too obvious for a new user of Google Reader.

While reading this, you may also want to check out using Google Gears and AideRSS with Google Reader.

1: Drag and drop

Although Google Reader arranges tags and feeds alphabetically by default, you can actually drag and drop them and arrange them according to your priority.

2: Received and published date

If you hover your mouse over the time and date in a particular feed, then it shows the received and published date of that feed. You can check this and find out the time which Google Reader takes to pull feeds from a particular blog after the post is published.

3: Show Feed details

If you go to a particular blog feed then there is a small show details link under the list view tab, which when clicked, immediately shows the number of posts published per week and the number of Google Reader / iGoogle subscribers for that blog.

4: Keep as unread

This is pretty simple but still I thought I’d mention it. When you click on a post in a feed, at the bottom it has a ” keep as unread ” button which is not checked by default. So if you are in a hurry and would love to read the post later, then you can just check that small box.

5: Feed Recommendations

If you have been a frequent Google Reader user, then it tracks your reading habits and based on that, it recommends feeds to you. You can find them on the right side of your reader home page . It’s a nice way to discover new blogs of your type.

6: Scroll tracking

I think the screenshot below tells it all. You can find it in Settings and then under Preferences.

7: Easy Filter

If you go to Settings -> Subscriptions, there at the extreme right , you’ll find a small box which helps you filter subscriptions through tags, name or URL. Its pretty handy if you want to make changes to subscriptions within a particular tag.

8: Share with a note

We know that Google Reader offers a feed sharing feature, but recently it also introduced sharing with notes, which helps you to add your point of view to the feed which you are sharing. You will find the Share with note button at the bottom of each post in your reader.

I hope these features will further help you to use Google Reader more productively. What Reader features do you find the best?

Abhijeet Mukherjee is addicted to the internet and loves blogging and freelance writing. He blogs about tech tweaks, blogging tips, productivity hacks at Jeet Blog