FeedDemon 4.5 cuts Google Reader ties, Pro version free for all
We all know that FeedDemon is a dead project after its author announced that he would discontinue the application not only because of the discontinuation of Google Reader which the program relied on but also because he could not make ends meet with the product and had to take a full-time job to do so.
What many disappointed users may have overlooked though is the author's second post on his personal blog a couple of days later. In it he mentioned that he had plans to release a final free version of FeedReader that would support all the application's Pro features, but would come without ads or any other costs. That version would also cut ties with Google Reader to run independent of Google's soon defunct service so that users of the application would be able to use it after the shut down of Google Reader.
The latest (and final) version of FeedDemon is now available on the official project website. You can download and install it if you are running a PC with Windows.
There are only two changes in this release:
- Google Reader synchronization has been removed.
- FeedDemon is now free and no longer contains ads.
What this means is that all users get access to Pro features of the client. Those are:
- My Stream displays important feeds in a sidebar.
- Article prefetching so that you can read new items when you are offline.
- FeedStation to download multimedia files and have them copied to portable media players automatically.
- Content Filters that hide articles that are of no interest to you.
- Newspaper styles.
- Support for feeds that require authentication.
You can import feeds using the File menu at the top. This includes importing individual RSS feeds or OPML files. The program can sort all feeds you import into the current folder structure or use the structure that is described in the import file instead.
The program ships with many excellent tools and features to make your life easier. Here is a quick rundown of some of the most important features:
Tagging
The application supports tagging so that you can classify articles that you have read. You can access all tagged articles by tag from the left sidebar.
Content Filter
Articles will automatically be marked as read if they do or do not contain keywords that you specify. You can define where those keywords need to appear in articles. One interesting option is the ability to filter out individual authors this way.
Watches
If you are interested in specific topics, you can use watches to keep an eye on new articles that cover them. Watches are basically custom searches that list all articles that match a certain keyword or phrase in the sidebar so that you can access them directly from here.
Keyboard Shortcuts
The program supports dozens of keyboard shortcuts of which you may need to configure those that you want to use as not all features are mapped right after installation. You can them to find information in an article, mark feeds read, jump to the next or previous article, or search in all of your subscriptions.
In addition to that, you get a cleanup wizard, panic button, options to open external links directly in the default system browser instead of in FeedDemon or the previously mentioned offline modus.
What you do not get are any synchronization options. If you need to browse feeds on various desktop or mobile devices, then you are out of luck here. What you may be able to do though is sync all contents of the program's data folder so that you can access the data on all Windows PCs you want to use the program on. I have not tried that but this seems to be the only feasible option in this regard.
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Doesn’t Windows 8 know that www. or http:// are passe ?
Well it is a bit difficulty to distinguish between name.com domains and files for instance.
I know a service made by google that is similar to Google bookmarks.
http://www.google.com/saved
@Ashwin–Thankful you delighted my comment; who knows how many “gamers” would have disagreed!
@Martin
The comments section under this very article (3 comments) is identical to the comments section found under the following article:
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/15/netflix-is-testing-game-streaming-on-tvs-and-computers/
Not sure what the issue is, but have seen this issue under some other articles recently but did not report it back then.
Omg a badge!!!
Some tangible reward lmao.
It sucks that redditors are going to love the fuck out of it too.
With the cloud, there is no such thing as unlimited storage or privacy. Stop relying on these tech scums. Purchase your own hardware and develop your own solutions.
This is a certified reddit cringe moment. Hilarious how the article’s author tries to dress it up like it’s anything more than a png for doing the reddit corporation’s moderation work for free (or for bribes from companies and political groups)
Almost al unlmited services have a real limit.
And this comment is written on the dropbox article from August 25, 2023.
First comment > @ilev said on August 4, 2012 at 7:53 pm
For the God’s sake, fix the comments soon please! :[
Yes. Please. Fix the comments.
With Google Chrome, it’s only been 1,500 for some time now.
Anyone who wants to force me in such a way into buying something that I can get elsewhere for free will certainly never see a single dime from my side. I don’t even know how stupid their marketing department is to impose these limits on users instead of offering a valuable product to the paying faction. But they don’t. Even if you pay, you get something that is also available for free elsewhere.
The algorithm has also become less and less savvy in terms of e.g. English/German translations. It used to be that the bot could sort of sense what you were trying to say and put it into different colloquialisms, which was even fun because it was like, “I know what you’re trying to say here, how about…” Now it’s in parts too stupid to translate the simplest sentences correctly, and the suggestions it makes are at times as moronic as those made by Google Translations.
If this is a deep-learning AI that learns from users’ translations and the phrases they choose most often – which, by the way, is a valuable, moneys worthwhile contribution of every free user to this project: They invest their time and texts, thereby providing the necessary data for the AI to do the thing as nicely as they brag about it in the first place – alas, the more unprofessional users discovered the translator, the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, the greater the aggregate of linguistically illiterate users has become, and the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, as it now learns the drivel of every Tom, Dick and Harry out there, which is why I now get their Mickey Mouse language as suggestions: the inane language of people who can barely spell the alphabet, it seems.
And as a thank you for our time and effort in helping them and their AI learn, they’ve lowered the limit from what was once 5,000 to now 1,500…? A big “fuck off” from here for that! Not a brass farthing from me for this attitude and behaviour, not in a hundred years.
When will you put an end to the mess in the comments?
Ghacks comments have been broken for too long. What article did you see this comment on? Reply below. If we get to 20 different articles we should all stop using the site in protest.
I posted this on [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/] so please reply if you see it on a different article.
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Article Title: Reddit enforces user activity tracking on site to push advertising revenue
Article URL: https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
No surprises here. This is just the beginning really. I cannot see a valid reason as to why anyone would continue to use the platform anymore when there are enough alternatives fill that void.
I’m not sure if there is a point in commenting given that comments seem to appear under random posts now, but I’ll try… this comment is for https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
My temporary “solution”, if you can call it that, is to use a VPN (Mullvad in my case) to sign up for and access Reddit via a European connection. I’m doing that with pretty much everything now, at least until the rest of the world catches up with GDPR. I don’t think GDPR is a magical privacy solution but it’s at least a first step.