Google Reader or something else?

The main benefit of Google reader is that you can access your feeds anywhere and it’s platform independent.
That’s why I use Google reader instead of an application you need to install.

The benefit of an installed app is that you can cache news to read later when you’re off the grid. Plus there can be some efficiencies since the app is developed for the strengths of that particular platform.

The Newsgator family of RSS readers (including NetNewsWire mentioned above) support a number of various platforms and can be setup so that items read in a reader on your phone will be automatically marked as read in the reader on your PC. (I keep four separate instances on four different platforms sync’d in that way.) Oh, and by the way, they’re all free.

@robmandu, you can use google gears to download all unread items for offline access, and then when you are connected, you can turn off gears, and it syncs what you’ve read with the server.

I have tried RSSOwl, Vienna, NewsNetWire, Sage, and Thunderbird, and I find Google Reader to be the best of the lot, by far. Syncing no matter where you are precludes anything from being duplicated in your list.

My favorite features are sharing articles, hotkeys, Suggested Feeds, “Google Recommended for You” articles, and feed discovery. There’s no limit to how many articles you can ‘share’ or star (bookmark), and you can search through the history of all of your subscriptions, just like in GMail. Also, there’s some hot Greasemonkey scripts for it. If you’re running Firefox, check out Lifehacker’s Better gReader.

I’m a reader devotee, and I don’t care who knows it. ;)

Extra hot tip: access reader through https: https://www.google.com/reader/

Here's a description of how Google Gears works: http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/013657.html

Pretty simple!

I too use Reader and am very happy with it.