FeedDemon is considered as the best desktop RSS Reader for Windows unlike others like Google Reader and Bloglines. Recently, Nick Bradbury, creator of FeedDemon has released version 3.0 and is available for download. The new version contains many important features and a lot of improvements to the existing features that many users have been waiting for since long. The article covers some of the distinctive and new features available in FeedDemon 3.0 in detail.
Google Reader & FeedDemon Synchronization
Google Reader is a free service which allows you to read feeds through web browser and access them from any computer or application that synchronizes with Google Reader. With FeedDemon you can now synchronize your feeds, tags and share items with Google Reader, providing an access to your Google Reader subscriptions right from your desktop. The most important feature that outplays web-based RSS readers is that with FeedDemon you can read the RSS feeds offline (without internet connection).
A web-based reader like Bloglines does not allow subscribing to password-protected feeds or feeds that exist behind firewall like Intranet feeds but on the other hand FeedDemon supports these types of feeds. Make sure that the folders aren’t synchronized with Google Reader as Google Reader doesn’t currently support password-protected feeds, so you can’t add them to synchronized folders.
To enable Google Reader sync, navigate to Tools > Enable Google Reader Synchronization and follow the instructions provided. FeedDemon enables synchronization at the folder level. To enable synchronization for a specific folder, just right click on it, choose “Folder Properties,” then place a checkmark against “Synchronize this folder with Google Reader” (as shown in screenshot below)
Folders that are synchronized with Google Reader have a blue feed icon next to them. Folders that are not synchronized don’t have blue feed icon.
After enabling synchronization for a folder –
§ Feeds will be automatically added to Google Reader after you subscribe it via FeedDemon 3.0
§ Any feeds you add to this folder will automatically be added to your online subscriptions.
§ Any feed you remove from this folder will be removed online.
§ And when you read an item in one of these feeds, it will automatically be marked read online
Tagging Items in FeedDemon
You can now classify and locate articles you have previously read using newly introduced feature-Tagging that enables you to assign your own keywords to items. To assign a tag to an item, click the tag icon under the article’s headline. You will notice the tag editor window that lets you enter the tags.
The intelligent inbuilt FeedDemon tag editor will suggest a few tags for the article you’ve selected. You can also delete or rename the Tags anytime in future. When you tag an article in a feed that’s synchronized with Google Reader, that tag will also be synchronized automatically.
Sharing Items with FeedDemon
Earlier, to share any web page you need to drag-and-dropping a hyperlink or browser tab to your shared items. But now, FeedDemon 3.0 lets you share articles with a single click. Just click the 
Share icon to add an article to your shared items. “Share” icon added to newspaper will automatically add the item to your Google Reader shared item list.
FeedDemon’s simple single-click sharing also lets your friends subscribe to a feed of your favorite articles. Use “Share with Note” option to add a note or comment to the story before sharing it online. Just click the 
annotate icon which appears to the right of the share icon.
Short URL preview
Short URL’s are less likely to break in emails and very useful in sharing links on microblogging platform like twitter where there is a 140-character limit. But, short URL may sometime cost you a job. You cannot identify the content of the story via Short URL. It is very much likely that the short URL may redirect you to a site with porn content or to a site meant for spreading virus.
FeedDemon 3.0 allows you to preview the real URL behind the short URL. If you want to find out from where a short URL will take you, just hover over a short URL (TinyURL.com, etc.), it will show the full URL in a balloon tip so you know where the URL redirects.
Twitter Integration
Earlier version of FeedDemon provided Twitter feeds that were in simple plain text with no hyperlinks and images. But now, Twitter is tightly integrated with FeedDemon 3.0. As discussed above it lets you preview the original links of the short URLs and provides an automatic hyperlinking of URLs, @replies, #hashtags and author names in Twitter feeds.
Profile pictures will also be displayed when subscribing to the Atom version of a Twitter feed, if the feed is in a folder that isn’t synchronized. When viewing a post from a Twitter feed a “Reply” link in newspaper is available now. FeedDemon 3.0 also lets you subscribe to password-protected Twitter Timeline feeds in FeedDemon which is not possible in Google Reader otherwise.
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Keyword Search Feeds
Keyword search feeds provide a powerful way to search outside of FeedDemon’s subscriptions. To subscribe to a search feed, click the Subscribe toolbutton, then instead of entering a feed URL, type a keyword or phrase and click Next.
After you choose a feed search engine, FeedDemon will subscribe to a dynamic feed containing the search results for that keyword. This is a great way to find out when someone is talking about a topic of interest in a feed you’re not already subscribed to.
Requirements
- Microsoft Windows ® XP or later
- Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 ® or later
Download – FeedDemon 3.0 for Windows
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