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DESCRIPTION

Vienna is a freeware and open source RSS/Atom newsreader with article storage and management via an SQLite database, written in Objective-C and Cocoa for the Mac OS X operating system. It provides features comparable to commercial newsreaders, but both it and the source code are free and available for download.

A summary of some of its features:

  • Subscribe to Atom/RSS news feeds and podcasts.
  • Simple and intuitive user interface with customisable toolbar.
  • Built-in tabbed browser.
  • Global search of all retrieved articles.
  • Automatic detection of newsfeeds on web pages.
  • Smart folders for organising related feed articles.
  • Custom article display styles.
  • Three separate reading layouts.
  • Blogging integration.
  • Support for downloading enclosures in articles
  • Filter the displayed articles.
  • Manual reordering of the subscription list.
  • Full AppleScript support.
  • Localised into several languages.

WHAT'S NEW
Version 2.3.4.2305: Release notes were unavailable when this listing was updated.
REQUIREMENTS
Mac OS X 10.4 or later.

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SCREENSHOT

Developer:Steve Palmer
Downloads:59,240
  - Version d/l:2,457
Internet:Newsreaders
License:Free
Date:31 Jul 2009
Platform:PPC/Intel
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Vienna User Reviews (52 posts)Write A Review
sort: smiles | time
Jul 31 2009
*****

STUGOTS  I switched to this from NetNewsWire, after the NNW Beta update nuked most of my subscriptions.

I find Vienna to be very stable, with a cleaner UI than what I've been used to with NetNewsWire. There's a better use of real estate. The overall visual design looks far more polished than what you usually find in an open-source project.

The default fonts are OK but there are better choices, IMHO. They are easy to change in the preferences.

The only feature I miss is synchronization with a service out on the web, so I can share my feeds between work and home. (*Not* Google Reader, TYVM.) From what I gather in the support forum, synchronization is one of the new features being considered.  
(Version 2.3.3.2304)

praisebury
+5
[ Reply ]
Jul 31 2009
*****

ROB.H  Ticks all the right boxes for me.

Now that NetNewsWire is going commercial/ad-supported, Vienna is a great free alternative. Clean uncluttered interface (with some interesting visual styles to choose from if you like that sort of thing) plus it's easy and intuitive to use.

The only thing missing really is the sync features of NetNewsWire, but then I'm trying to ween myself off hours of reading newsfeeds every day on every device I own, so that's probably a good thing!   
(Version 2.3.3.2304)

praisebury
+5
[ Reply ]
Dec 16 2007

JOSHEWAH  I like this app a lot. I wish that flash and audio/video wouldn't reload every time I switched tabs though. If I am checking out a song from a blog in a tab and go back to read feeds while it plays it cuts it off and starts downloading again when I go back to it.  
(Version 2.2.2.2211b)

praisebury
+5
[ Reply ]
Sep 16 2009
*****

CMASON  I just heard that netnewswire was going ad-supported (ironically, it was their own beta update message that mentioned this.) I used to use netnewswire lite and was happy with it and never really needed the "pro" version. I got it anyway once they made it free but never really used any of the advanced features.

I tried newsfire and it looked nice, but didn't have the same 3-pane view I was used to.

So, then I found Vienna. It works great! I loaded up my subscriptions, changed a couple fonts, and that's it. It is doing exactly what I want with a simple interface that looks almost the same as netnewswire. Most importantly, *no ads*! Well done.  
(Version 2.3.4.2305)

praisebury
+4
[ Reply ]
Jul 27 2009
*****

MOMIJIGARI  I use this software every day.  
(Version 2.3.2.2303)

praisebury
+3
[ Reply ]
Dec 2 2007
****.

IVANOVITCH  A timely update: it was unusable with Remote Buddy open at the same time (made Vienna uncontrollable, oddly). Further, the display bugs introduced with Leopard now appear to be ironed out. No more truncated scrollbars or icons.

What's missing:

Still no icon to indicate that a headline has been opened in external browser: only option is to display read/unread and to manually flag item.

Also difficult to re-sort headlines by date (up or down) without doubling size of pane used for headlines (I use condensed layout to emulate previously purchased RSS readers).

Apart from this, it works remarkably well, and the price is brilliant value. Like others, I bought other readers but grew disappointed with the direction of development and features. I'm now happily stuck with Vienna.  
(Version 2.2.1.2210)

praisebury
+3
[ Reply ]
Sep 29 2009
****.

PENGUIRL  I came back to Vienna after NetNewsWire switched their synching from NewsGator to Google and raised the system requirements to 10.5. It has a nice UI, good functionality, and it's the only RSS/Atom reader I've tried that imported my feeds in the same folder hierarchy that they were exported in. So far my only complaints are font related, increasing the size of the article headlines font causes the date and time to be cut off by the headline below it, and there is no font settings for the article summary or the full articles. The only way to make them larger is to force all fonts to a larger minimum size, thus bringing up the previously mentioned issue.

At this time I don't need synchronization but it would be a nice feature to have for the future. All in all Vienna is the best of it's class.  
(Version 2.3.4.2305)

praisebury
+2
[ Reply ]
Sep 23 2009
*****

ITISTODAY  - Builtin tabbed web browser!

- Fast!

- Support for folders and nested folders!

- Email-like view to show article titles from either a feed, or a group of feeds!

- Open source!

- Smart folders!

- Easy flagging!

What's not to like?? This is the best news reader I've come across, bar none.  
(Version 2.3.4.2305)

praisebury
+2
[ Reply ]
Nov 21 2007

TINGTING  Needs more toolbar button options like "mark all read" "refresh" just a single feed. And not a drop down menu like it has where you get carpal tunnel click-scroll-click. One click. otherwise cool, I hope it grows in the right direction.  
(Version 2.2.0)

praisebury
+1
[ Reply ]
Sep 9 2007
*****

ZX81  I hate Vienna!

I bought NetNewsWire and Newsfire and discovered Vienna afterwards!!! Now I don't use the readers I have bought anymore and I've swithched to the free one...It's fast, easy to configure and use, can import and export my list of suscriptions (I exported it to OmniOutliner). The builtin browser is just great and seems to be able to open any Web page and download files (which isn't the case of NetNewsWire ; I've tested quite a few pages).

Very stable. Great app.  
(Version 2.2.0)

praisebury
+1
[ Reply ]
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