Vienna - the Best Free RSS Reader for Macs

Although I almost always use Google Reader as my RSS and Atom feeds reader (for blogs and such), there is still a large part of me that likes the simplicity and convenience of a stand-alone reader. And while I have used, and enjoyed, such programs as NetNewsWire Lite (I never felt the need to go beyond the free version and purchase a license for the shareware version), and other Mac and Linux programs, I've recently discovered (after having tried an older version a couple years ago), what I feel to be the best of the free RSS readers for Mac.

Vienna.

Vienna is, in my mind, the best of all possible worlds. It is a RSS/Atom reader that allows for fast navigation of all my blogs. It has three different views for browsing feeds, and also has the ability to show either the syndicated content or the actual web page the feed originates from. As well, Vienna uses tabs, which is think is a great feature that more programs should take advantage of.

First, Vienna is fast. It starts up fast, it checks my blogs quickly, and it allows me to switch from one post to the next, from one blog to the next, quite speedily. Vienna uses what I think are good keyboard shortcuts, especially while in Digest View. In this view, simply hit the up or down arrows to move up or down through the feed list. When you find the feed you want to browse, hit the right arrow and you'll be able to navigate up or down through the recent posts, again using the up or down arrows. To move back to the feed list, simply hit the left arrow key and navigate through it once more. Simple, and more importantly, obvious. Too many other blog readers I've used have chosen arcane key combinations in order to accomplish what Vienna does simply and elegantly.

As I mentioned, Vienna has three modes for browsing your blogs. Digest is what I consider the standard view. In this mode, Vienna looks very much like an email client, with your mailboxes to the left (your feeds), a list of all your emails in a top pane (the blog posts themselves), and then the selected email (the post you're currently reading), at the bottom. This is probably my favorite way of reading through blogs, and the way I feel most comfortable in.