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We looked at what feeds are in a previous post (Feeds - RSS). Now we will look at softwares and services that let you subscribe to these feeds.

There are two different type of feed readers (or aggregators) that will let you subscribe to feeds, and give you a list of updated articles that they can find.

There are many feed readers or feed aggregators that let you do this, and they fall under two categories:

• Client side readers
• Web based readers

Client side readers

These are standalone programs or programs that are feed-aware. These programs need to be installed on your computer, and they fetch the updates from the subscribed feeds whenever the computer is connected to the internet.

I personally use Mozilla Thunderbird, that is an e-mail client as well as a client side feed reader. There are other e-mail clients that can subscribe to feeds for you, like Forté Agent.

There are other standalone programs like GrabIt that serve the sole purpose of fetching the updates from subscribed feeds.

Some of the web-browsers have built-in functionality of feed readers.

Web based readers

These services requires no installation on your PC.  These services give the feature of subscribing to feeds as a web based solution where you just need to log in and manage your subscriptions.  They poll the websites from where you have the feeds subscribed and fetch the headlines and excerpts (or the full content depending on the way the feeds are configured by the websites).

The most popular services are Bloglines and Google Reader.

The choice between the two basically revolves around the requirement of the user.  Having a client side news reader lets you have a local copy of the content, that you may read even without connecting to the internet.  You may connect to the internet once to download all the updates and then you need not be connected to the internet.  But you would not be able to carry around your subscription list if you use more than one computer.

On the other hand, in web based services, there is no problem of tracking your subscription at all the different PCs you may use.  But it does require you to be connected to the internet to access the feeds.