Egress VS Pocket RSS: Pocket RSS - SLOW feed update speed

[isomaniac]

I am now using Egress and Pocket RSS (yes, Newsbreak is OUT of my Pocket PC now). I use both of them to update the same set of feeds. To my surprise,

Pocket RSS is SO SLOW to update the feeds. For my 48 feeds, it took more than 15 minutes to update (I was connected via wifi to my wireless router, which was then connected to the Internet via a PPPoE connection).
Also, all the photos inside each headline were NOT LOADED at all. All photos were missing.
Many words/links were corrupted and showed only HTML tags. Made the passage VERY uncomfortable to read.
The font size, is also TOO SMALL to read. I could not find any option to change the font size nor the usage of Clear Type font.

On the other hand, Egress won AGAIN this round. It took about 5 min to update the same 48 feeds. All photos/links/words were flawlessly shown. The font, especially after I have choosed to use Clear Type font, is large clear and very comfortable to read.

So, I vote for Egress one more time!

Egress author, thanks for your good software. I just wish you can add functions like:

1. Download the full content of selected headlines/feeds when an Internet connection is established OR when I choose to.
2. Tag the selected headlines/feeds so that they will NOT be purged even when new headlines are downloaded.
3. Support GB Chinese font (simplified Chinese font). Now it supports BIG5 (traditional chinese font) flawlessly. I am a chinese person living in Hong Kong so I read chinese feeds with different chinese font as well.
4. Email the selected headlines (or with their full content) out when an Internet connection is established OR when I choose to.
5. Keyword SEARCH from feeds/headlines.
6. Activity log to show users the last 10 activities (e.g. feed update, Internet connection, error etc)

Pls add YOUR wish item for this software.

[zilla31]

i'm with you. i was using pocketRSS because of it's new integration with pocketbreeze but even that couldn't convince me to hang on once i tried egress. egress is the best (i think i've tried them all).

[isomaniac]

What else RSS readers for pocket PC you have tried?

[GSmith]

Have you tried FeederReader? It's got great podcast support. It's not as polished as Egress or PocketRSS, but it's a useful alternative (it's almost in Beta testing). Downloads, Manuals, and link to message board are at www.FeederReader.com

Greg Smith
Author, FeederReader - The Pocket PC RSS reader and podcatcher
Catches videos, too!
www.FeederReader.com

[Viva]

Pocket RSS is SO SLOW to update the feeds. For my 48 feeds, it took more than 15 minutes to update (I was connected via wifi to my wireless router, which was then connected to the Internet via a PPPoE connection).
Also, all the photos inside each headline were NOT LOADED at all. All photos were missing.


I totally agree that PocketRSS is quite possibly the most over-rated RSS program for pocketpc's ... The *only* reason it seems to attract people is that it plugs into PocketBreeze; .. and even then its far too fiddly to use.

The main complaint, as you say, is that it is so *SLOW* .. I have run pretty much all of the main RSS programs; Egress (quite good, but its display frequently shows glitches when paging-down) .. PocketRSS (extremely slow in trawling the feeds in, cumbersome .. poor interface) and NewsBreak 1.0 .. NewsBreak seems to understand the need to concentrate on keeping the interface 'simple' allowing the user to read the feed-data effortlessly.. loads in faster than any other PPC RSS-reader and is just a complete joy to use..

I really can't see myself looking at another RSS reader for a long time.. I think NewsBreak is going to hold the #1 spot for a *long* time to come.

3 / 5 (Egress)
2 / 5 (PocketRSS)
5 / 5 (NewsBreak)

[GSmith]

Viva,

I really appreciate your enthusiasm for NewsBreak. It really shows!

What would be really useful is for you to enumerate the advantages of NewsBreak over the other options, including PocketRSS, Egress, and FeederReader.

Certainly NewsBreak has features that others don't. And I'd love to hear what they are! But I also suspect that the other programs offer features that NewsBreak does not. For instance, if you want to get into podcasting and video casting, I think FeederReader is the best choice. I've worked hard to make receiving media over RSS an integrated feature.

In addition, the choice of which tool you use does not always depend on a "feature list" type of item. The feature list may say "supports RSS feeds" or "supports podcasting" but not go into detail on how those features are supported and what the user experience is (for example, see http://www.feederreader.com/EnclosureSupport.html ). Each tool offers different methods of accessing the information, and the tool you prefer will likely be based on in part if the tool matches your ideal method of accessing. Some people want to get all the headlines in a long list and scroll through them. Some people want to wade through the newest items first, some people want deep access to the feeds, attributes, and raw files.

I would love more detail on why you enjoy NewsBreak, it would be very useful to everyone including developers who would like to offer you alternatives!

Greg Smith
Author, FeederReader - The Pocket PC RSS reader and podcatcher
Catches video, too!
www.FeederReader.com