Even though Linux has several dependable RSS news readers, one of them stands out because of its great features. It is the adaptable RSSOwl which has lots of features.
Features of RSSOwl
- The user interface can be customized by removing and adding things from the toolbar.
- Offers notifications of recent news items, including excerpts of recent articles (according to your wishes)
- Share your articles and feeds with Evernote, Reddit, Email, Read it Later, Twitter, Facebook, Delicious and several others.
- Allocate labels for organization
- Bookmark write-ups you enjoy reading using the News Bins element.
- Saved searches to enable you build custom feed from several news sources with powerful filters. A “Newspaper View” with two panes with which you can scroll through complete articles rather than just headlines.
- Grouping mode that is able to arrange a register of entries by any particular date, feed, category or author.
- Embedded web browser which will allow you open the complete edition of any write-up from feed view.
- Tab based viewing to enable you open several news feeds at the same time
- Synchronizes with Google Reader.
Its strong point
RSSOwl is a very strong news reader for Linux. Apart from being able to synchronize with Google reader, there is also a lot you can do with a particular article or feed: you can build feeds of your own using saved search filters, sort feeds using any category you like, View articles or feeds in the browser embedded in RSSOwl (or any external browser you prefer to use), and open the article or feed in tabs. It has numerous different view types you can make use of, depending on your inclinations, as well as share write-ups to any one of the several services out there. What makes it stand out is its deep configuration option. It is capable of sharing to more than twenty five different services; however you can select the ones that will be displayed in the menu to prevent cluttering. Also the toolbar can be completely modified. Linux users who enjoy customizing things will enjoy using this feature.
Its Shortcomings
RSSOwl is cross platform because it is coded in Java, but that also makes it appear somewhat inappropriate on any particular platform. It is definitely not the finest news reader for linux, and it is certainly not the fastest; however it has to deal with Java due to its numerous features. Also installing it is quite tricky, as you have to first get it through GetDeb repositories.
The Competition
You should go for Liferea if you prefer something a little more indigenous to Linux. This app is a GTK Linux feed reader. It does not have all the features possessed by RSSOwl, but has sharing features, saved searches, News Bins feature as well as Google Reader Syncing. Even though it has most of the features found in RSSOwl, all these features are a lot less configurable. For instance, the only thing you can share with its sharing feature are the articles you bookmarked, and this will be to just one of its numerous sources, meaning that you will not be allowed to select a different source each time you share any article. Also, Liferea’s search is not as strong, and even though it offers several different view types, RSSOwl provides many more view modes. But if you are not selective, Liferea is definitely a good alternative to RSSOwl. It is definitely a good news reader for linux.
Akregator is another app that has some fine features such as notifications, tabbed viewing, plus some fine Konqueror integration. However Akregator’s main benefit is its ability to integrate with KDE desktop environment, which is not so good. Another big draw back is the fact that it lacks Google Reader syncing, as every user would like to be able to view feeds from any appliance. You can also go for Thunderbird or Firefox, which do not also possess Google Reader syncing, but the two have inbuilt basic RSS support. Some users like this feature very much because it eliminates the need to install a separate application.
Finally, you can also make use of readers like Netvibes and Google Reader which are web-based. Both offer sharing features plus superb interfaces, and Netvibes provides a huge number of customization. These are not native applications, however they are good alternatives, and they are quite competitive as regards convenience and feature set.
You will definitely find other readers out there, but you should consider checking out the ones mentioned here are and select your best news reader for linux.
