Blogging 101: Feedreader 3.07 reviewed

I use Feedreader version 2.9 as the main RSS feed reader and I even blogged about it last year.

Then (I think beginning of this year) I-Systems launched Feedreader version 3.0 which had a better interface and looked much cleaner than version 2.9 (of course). The problem that I noticed is that version 3.0 does not import the folders from version 2.9 automatically. We had to do it manually and it is a pain in the neck when there is a lot of feed to be sorted out. Nonetheless, since I wanted to try the newer version, I uninstalled version 2.9 and installed version 3.0.

The version 3.0 started to give problems and was not so user friendly when it came to opening the feed into a browser. Soon after, I had enough of it and reinstalled version 2.9. I been using version 2.9 ever since but version 2.9 was not without its own problems. Without warning, it will show error message and cause the feeds to be updated all over again. It is a bit messy when need to sort the latest feed with the old ones.

That was until I noticed that version 3.07 was released. A quick note at the website showed these changes:-

New Enclosure Browser feature

If newsfeed contains enclosures / podcasts then Feedreader asks user if podcasts should downloaded automatically

All items with enclosures now show their download status: Not downloaded, In download queue, Downloading, Downloaded, Erroneous

Possible to increase and decrease font size in Feedreader window from application

Some users have complained about the fact that Feedreader is brought into foreground if notification window is displayed.

Easier feed subscription from Firefox. Earlier Feedreader versions were a little bit buggy then talking about this feature. Now Feedreader should subscribe to feeds nicely if autodiscovery button is pressed in Firefox.

Fixed some problem what occurred when upgrading to Internet Explorer 7

Fixed some bugs in enclosure/podcasts downloading. Persons who are using Feedreader to download podcasts should update to 3.07 soon.

Ya, sounded like a lot of improvement but what I wanted to know was whether the version 3.07 had solved the problem I faced in version 3.0.

For start, I noticed version 3.07 was able to do an automatic import of folders from version 2.9 to version 3.07. That saved a lot of time sorting the feeds in version 3.07. The opening of the feed into a new browser was similar to version 2.9 i.e. it gave both choices of viewing it on the Feedreader and opening it in a browser. In version 3.0, we can only one thing – either this or that. And finally as mentioned above, it is now easier to add feed from Firefox RSS auto discovery. I just to click on the Firefox RSS icon and the feed get automatically listed in the Feedreader.

The interface looks clean but whether the parse error will show up in version 3.07 is yet to be seen but as at todate, it is a much improvement compared to version 2.9. I will continue to see whether this will crop up in version 3.07 as well.

Otherwise, it is a good improvement from the Feedreader team.

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