Chill Pill

Fever looks like a beautiful RSS reader.... But requires a 30 dollar service they provide to even use. It'd be nice if you could use it as a normal RSS reader without needing the "Fever" service. But oh well, they're trying to run a business. I respect that.

Gone from the App Store, and the website is no longer available.

It's too bad for the folks at Conceited Software that Fever (the self-hosted RSS-server/reader solution upon which Chill Pill is based) cannot be test-flown at all. You have to pony up the $30 that Fever's developer, Shaun Inman, requires before you can even LOOK at Fever - other than screen-shots - let alone fiddle with its configuration to see whether it's for you. And since Chill Pill works through Fever, that $30 barrier applies to it, as well. And that's a shame. Because I completely understand the previous commenter's reluctance to fork out $30 without even a trial period or money-back guarantee. However, as someone who's already done so, let me offer a few thoughts on Chill Pill. Chill Pill is an unqualified plus for Fever because it's a desktop version of what is essentially an online experience. The advantage to desktop readers, whether they're NewsFire or NetNewsReader or any other, is that they can be used in place of Safari as the default news reader application. Selecting a desktop reader as your default newsreader allows you to simply click on RSS (or Atom, etc.) links, and have them open up right in your preferred app. Fluid instances can't really do this well.I used to run Google Reader as a Fluid instance, but it never really worked right when I listed "Google Reader" as my default RSS reader in OS X. And, as anyone who's ever had tried clicking on RSS links in Safari - if Google reader is your preferred RSS reader - it doesn't work so well. But Chill Pill solves this problem with aplomb. And, it also allows you to do a number of nifty things with Fever that you just can't do in a standard browser. So, thumbs up for that! I don't know how the folks at Conceited Software made this free, I'm just glad they made it, period - and the "free" part is merely icing on the cake. Chill Pill makes Fever behave; it looks gorgeous, functions well, and provides desktop-app functionality with online-app convenience.

Fever looks like a beautiful RSS reader.... But requires a 30 dollar service they provide to even use. It'd be nice if you could use it as a normal RSS reader without needing the "Fever" service. But oh well, they're trying to run a business. I respect that.