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NEWS READERS FOR MAC

MacFormat UK

January 2024

Get to the heart of the news stories you want to read

Really Simple Syndication or RSS feeds became hugely popular in the first decade of this century but there's even more of a need for them today. As the web continues to feel cluttered, algorithms attempt to decide what you may want to see, and social media remains awash with noise, RSS helps to bring order to chaos.

With an RSS reader, news feeds can be curated in one place so that you don't need to hop from one website to another to remain up-to-date with the latest goings on. As such, a reader puts you in total control, enabling you to decide which content appears and how. The best apps will also give you the opportunity to discover, organise and filter articles. They'll strip away adverts and enable you to customise how content appears.

But how do you know which reader is worthwhile, given that most expect you to pay for the privilege? Well, that's the focus of this group test. We've put six of the best RSS readers for the Mac through their paces to discover which of these headliners are most likely to grab your attention.

How we tested

Each app was installed and initially tested to see how quickly we could add feeds and get them up and running. We paid particular attention to their import facilities and search engines. We then checked to see how easy the readers were to navigate (including via keyboard shortcuts) and how cleanly the articles were presented, before exploring the filters and other features in greater depth to assess whether they worked well and were actually useful.

1 The interface The whole point of an RSS reader is that it makes it easy to browse content across multiple sources. It’s important, then, that the interface is intuitive, enabling you to find the feeds you want and the articles within them in seconds.