A lot of people enjoy using RSS feeds while others still don’t quite understand how. Those who do get it understand that an RSS feed is a gateway to portable web content. No more do you have to visit a website to see what the latest articles are. You can have those articles brought to you.
One such application is called Snackr. It is a free, Adobe AIR based app which gives you a ticker-style run of headlines for RSS feeds you subscribe to.
Like any AIR-based application, you install it right from the Internet using the “Install Now” button on their website. Once installed, the blank ticker will anchor itself to the bottom of your computer monitor. You can, of course, move it around and place it wherever you want. In my case, I positioned it over on my third monitor at the bottom.
You can either manually subscribe to your favorite RSS feeds using Snackr or you can import an OPML export of all your subscribed feeds from your favorite feed reader. In my case, I chose to manually subscribe only to the most important feeds. I subscribe to a few hundred blogs in my Google Reader and I most definitely don’t need all of those scrolling across my screen.
This app is perfect if you’re an information junkie. Others may find it annoying to have all that “noise” scrolling across your screen nonstop. It is all a matter of personal preference.
Keep in mind, too, that this application, like any other Adobe AIR based app, does bloat up in your system memory over time. After running for several hours, Snackr started to act up on my system, even causing strange flickering as it scrolled. It was using a few hundred megs of system RAM which is quite high for an RSS ticker. I will say, though, that I am using a Mac and some have said that Adobe AIR uses more resources under OS X. Windows users may not experience the same issues.
All in all, Snackr is a great, free application for information junkies.
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I love Snackr, but make sure you try out the newer Test/Beta version!
http://www.rictus.com/muchado/2008/07/22/snackr-v038-test-google-reader-integration-is-here/
Its still considered beta but I’ve not encountered any issues. Did I mention that the beta sync’s with Google Reader for both feeds and marking items read or not between the two? Practically a must have for me with always having so many things to read! Also works great for syncing your feeds over multiple PCs if you don’t like using GReader (only RSS reader that I like right now)
Also I have noticed improvements on system performance and RAM usage with the latest version, maybe you should check that out and see if it performs better…