14 DAY TRIAL // When you have a database as big as the Internet, you definitely cannot search all your sources for the latest news. The activity would simply prove to be unproductive and you would lose huge amounts of time trying to filter yesterday's information from today's intelligence.
Progress boost asked for a solution to this, especially when the Internet spread in more and more places, its speed increased and an incremental number of people accessed it every day. Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication brought the answer to the problem and with its introduction we could enjoy the latest news already filtered. Thus, it gave us the chance to read only the latest of the latest regarding information.
The aggregators that facilitate the reading of the latest news are now all over the place and they are similar to email clients. The process is simple: you subscribe to a feed and when that feed is updated you will be notified through various means (visual or audio).
SharpReader is one of these tools specially created to read the feeds you subscribe to. The instrument is absolutely free and using it is a cinch. The interface is nice and friendly and at a first glance, one would say it is equipped with all the needed options.
The three sections composing the main application window let you view the feeds you have subscribed to, the latest news and the web page the information is displayed on. There are no complex settings to be made and even a kid could handle SharpReader.
The menu bar is quite poor in options and File offers you the possibility of adding new RSS feeds and subscribing to them. All the feeds you have gathered can be exported into an OPML file and stored on your computer. This way, you can make a backup to your data, just in case something goes wrong. The opposite action can also be performed and importing files from other RSS aggregators into SharpReader is no sweat.
The features included in the application are not many, but come in very handy at one point of your activity. For instance you can customize the font for the read/unread items and for the updated items. This way, you will never go through the same news twice unless you want to and will know at every moment which are the newest items in the list.
As every feed reader is equipped with an internal web browser SharpReader makes no exception to the rule and provides a sort of a navigation tool that has only the purpose of displaying the links. There is absolutely no other facility available. Luckily, the application's options took into consideration this matter and provided the user with the choice of opening the links in the external default web browser.
SharpReader's configuration panel lets you set the maximum concurrent connections and the time interval for alert pop-up in seconds. If you are behind a proxy (other than that defined in Internet Explorer) you can make all the settings in Proxy tab of the software's Options menu.
The feed properties can be defined from both the main application window and from the Options menu. These include feed specific settings like "alert news items", renaming of the feeds, the time to be kept, and the maximum items per feed (default is set to unlimited).
SharpReader's star feature is a search filter which enables you to find a specific word in all the news of a feed. The instrument is quite handy when you want to learn only about a specific news instead of reading them all just to find the subject you are interested in. The search parameters made available by the developer are age, flag value (a rating system that can be invoked from item's context menu), read and unread only. Apply the filter and the next instant there will be displayed the results.
There is another search option, in the top right part of the application window. The search bar there will look for your query on Feedster.com, which can be another source for information. The process is automatic and you cannot change it no matter what. This is a way to search for what you are interested in by viewing feeds you have not subscribed to.
All in all, SharpReader can be configured in almost no time and the feeds are downloaded fast. The only issue is that the only way to be alerted is the visual way. You cannot benefit from audio alerts. But even with this mischief, SharpReader does a great job.
The Good
The application is absolutely free and extremely easy to configure. The top right search bar allows you to search for feeds you have not subscribed to and the filters for searching inside the subscribed feeds let you find fast what you are looking for.
The rating system (flags) can help you manage your feeds by ranking them on a value scale.
The Bad
SharpReader has no audio alerts to be used. Also, implementing a color code for determining the read, unread and recently updated feeds would add to the software's value.
The Truth
The overall value of the program is very good and the fact that it is absolutely free is nothing but more good news. Indeed, the browser is a little poor in options, but the possibility of opening the links in the default external browser does not make this matter too much.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
