Installation

The installation file is 8 583KB and the installation process quite simple and quick – you have to agree to the terms, choose if you want a start-up folder created, and then finish the installation.

By default the help file is not included in the installation and has to be downloaded separately. Once downloaded you might have to unblock the file if you don’t see its content – right click on the awasu.chm file, choose properties and click the Unblock button if you run into that problem.

Ease of use

If you are familiar with other feed readers, then you shouldn’t have a problem finding your way around Awasu, however, the numerous advanced features and toolbars might be quite overwhelming for some users.

Adding a new feed is pretty straightforward – click New Channel from the File menu, type in or paste the channel’s url, edit the name and the description of the channel if you wish and finish the process.

The right-hand pane of the program provides shortcuts to the most common tasks such as adding new channel, searching for channels and organizing your favorite channels. Clicking on the Channels Pack link will let you browse some of the top feeds in a few major categories and let you quickly subscribe to the ones that appeal to you. The program supports shortcuts, the feeds are updated once an hour and can also be archived for a month; and if the online browser seems too small, when you read your favorite news feed, you can easily toggle between the normal and the full screen view.

Awasu Personal Edition is a freeware and works on Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7

[ Download Awasu Personal Edition now ]

Installation and Setup

Omea reader isn’t the most lightweight reader around but it does one of most fully featured. Although it can’t quite compete with its bite sized competition, it’s still a very small 12MB fully installed.

Ease of Use

It’s a little unfair to review Omea as just an RSS reader. As a standalone reader it’s just as fast and practical as any of its peers but where Omea really shines is in integration of a variety of different programs. Fully utilising Omea might mean you can cut down on the amount of applications you need, and that’s always good news.

Omea can handle the usual RSS and Atom streams, but it can also browse newsgroups, manage your bookmarks, contacts and clippings. It can take some time to get used to using Omea rather than your default program for these tasks, but once you do you’ll find out how much easier having them all in one place can be. Luckily, Omea’s wizard style menus allow you to import all of your old details from programs like Microsoft Outlook, Explorer and Firefox within seconds, so the initial set-up won’t take hours to sort out.

Omea lets you view of this data either together in an overview screen or in separate, more detailed tabs. There are multiple options for each tab so you can view and sort all the data in a way that works for you.

Omea does suffer in terms of memory usage and often the longer the program is left on for, the more memory it sucks up. Recent versions do go some way to solving this problem, however. Overall, it’s more than worth checking out thanks to the amount of time it can save the information hungry net user.

Download Jetbrains Omea Reader Today!