FeedDemon Can Now Sync Google Reader to the Desktop

feeddemon_logo RSS reading is one of the things that takes up the largest amount of my time on the Web. I read a ton of different blogs, news feeds and other sites, and almost all of my reading takes place within an RSS reader ““ for me, Google Reader.

There are a lot of times that I’ve wished Google Reader was available on the desktop, and available offline. Google Gears has helped with both of those things, but I still find that there’s some usability that’s lost when reading on the Web versus on the desktop ““ not to mention Gears has failed me more than a few times. Being able to save up feeds, and read them all when I’m on a plane or train, is a great feature ““ one that’s driven me away from Google Reader before.

The application I always wanted to use instead of Google Reader was FeedDemon, a great desktop- and web-based RSS reader from NewsGator. The desktop version is great, the Web application is awful. I hated having to choose, and always ended up going back to Google Reader.

Now, with the brand-new FeedDemon 3.0, we all get to have the best of both worlds. FeedDemon now syncs seamlessly with your Google Reader account, essentially making it a desktop version of Reader ““ and an awfully good one at that.

FeedDemon is a great application in its own right, and one that was featured on MakeUseOf by Laurence back in August. Even if you’re not a Google Reader user, FeedDemon’s worth a look ““ this new update, though, makes it worth revisiting again for everyone.

sync

When you download FeedDemon, you’re walked through a short setup process. One of the questions you’ll be asked is which service you want to sync FeedDemon with ““ make sure you pick Google Reader! FeedDemon will ask for your Google account info, and once you’re logged in, it syncs up for you.

From then on, FeedDemon pulls all your feeds from Google Reader instead of its own NewsGator service. That means anything you read in FeedDemon will be marked read in Google Reader, and vice-versa. If you’re reading RSS feeds offline, your FeedDemon items will be available, and as soon as you connect to the Web, everything will get synced again.

You can organize your feeds, add or delete them, and all changes will be mirrored across both applications. It won’t matter any more which one you use, because the functionality and content will be the same ““ it’s just a question of taste at this point.

demon

FeedDemon 3.0 is still in beta, and it has it bugs, but I have yet to encounter a deal-breaker issue. NewsGator is updating it frequently, and the application keeps getting better and more stable. FeedDemon is Windows-only, a fact that I know Mac users are hoping changes in the very near future. NewsGator does have an application for Mac OS, called NetNewsWire, and it’s a great application, but doesn’t work with Google Reader like FeedDemon does.

Though I’m still primarily a Google Reader user, having FeedDemon around for offline and desktop reading is a welcome development ““ my train rides just got a whole lot more interesting.

What’s your RSS reader of choice?

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David Pierce

I'm a college student, Ultimate Frisbee Player, and massive tech geek. I love to read, watch TV on DVD (boo, commercials), and break things so I can figure out how to fix them.

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  • http://pctonic.blogspot.com/ Ashutosh Mishra

    I solely use Google Reader, and with offline support now, there isn’t much reason to switch.

  • Yonathan

    I personally use Google Reader through iGoogle.
    Why not on Google Reader itself? Because it spreads the text wide, which I find harder to read.
    I like reading from above to below rather than from left to right.

  • Niklas Piepenbreier

    Is this Windows only? I’d love this for a Mac.

    • http://bordertop.com Zhuoshi

      I agree, this feature should also be available in NetNewsWire.

  • Davin Peterson

    Another reader that syncs Google Reader is RSS Bandit. However, it is much slower than FeedDemon. I’ve tried bout and FeedDemon works well and has a nice interface

  • John Coldwell

    I like Feed Demon in Windows XP SP3. Works well, and easy to read. But, it locks up my Windows Vista SP1 solid. No way to get out of it except a new start. Not impressed.

    • Davin Peterson

      I use Vista SP1 at home and have not any trouble with FeedDemon

  • acteon

    I like and use FeedDemon because of its powerful word-filtering feature.

    Currently I use about 30 filters (“watchers”), and growing; one of them is for deleting contents I’m not interested in (Twitter, iPod, iTunes, etc), and this one uses a black list of more than 6000 words and phrases, and growing. So every day I get about 1500 rss items (I still have to increase my rss utilization), but FeedDemon reduces it to about 170-180.

    FeedDemon’s filtering functionality is not perfect, but currently I don’t know an rss aggregator with a better filtering functionality.

  • Davis

    I can’t see the email addresses for Craigslist pages using Google Reader. Does the FeedDemon fix this?

  • iamdpbeltran

    this is helpful!
    recently started w/ google reader and i was looking for a desktop stand alone.
    r there any other apps like this tho?
    any rss reader
    phone apps

  • jason

    I like feed demon, but cannot filter feeds by keyword. Any advice?