Finally an offline RSS reader I might use

  • Posted by Shaun on June 1st, 2007 filed in Technology
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Google has taken a leap and added functionality to Google Reader that allows you to download the last 2000 posts and read them offline. To accomplish this they are using another piece of Google software named Google Gears. Gears gives web application developers the ability to create applications that run offline; it provides a relational database and a way to save resources on a client (browser).

I started checking out Gears earlier before I found out that Google Reader used it. I was disappointed to find out that Gears only works with Windows XP and Vista. So much for using this stuff at work. My desktop is Windows 2000. Maybe as it matures Google will support other versions of Windows and different platforms.

Back to Google Reader. I gave the offline reader a try and it isn’t bad. The response time is slower than when online, but that’s okay. When offline I was presented with many posts that I already marked as read. Sounds like a minor bug. The only real downside is that it really doesn’t do any complicated synchronizing when going offline. It simply gets the last 2000 posts. It seems more efficient to me to figure out what is new and download only that, but maybe not. The download of 2000 posts takes only a couple minutes and is text only. Pictures are not downloaded. You can click pictures to load them, but you have to be online for that to work.

I’ll give it a try though. I’ve been looking for a decent offline RSS reader and haven’t found one yet. Thunderbird came close, but I really didn’t like the interface since it is tough to use when you have many feeds to manage. I am currently subscribed to 75 feeds. That’s down from last week (which was closer to 85-90 feeds). I’ve unsubscribed a few that didn’t interest me much. Far too much good material to read through other sites.