For most users of RSS readers, the news that NetNewsWire has gone free is either good or, if you’ve already bought the software, not really relevant. And don’t get me wrong - it’s a good newsreader. It’s fast, intuitive, clean and clear. It also, however, synchronises with the Newsgator online feed reading and aggregation service.

Now that is usually seen to be a good thing. It allows you to read your feeds online if you’re away from your computer. It keeps what you’ve read synchronised. It allows Newsgator to pull only one copy of message from a server, and redistribute it to everyone using Newsgator or NetNewsWire. This is a good thing for those running RSS feeds. Less load.

It also has a downside. It means that Newsgator knows about all that you’re reading. It knows about the private feeds internal to your company. It might not be able to access them all, but it means that the fact that they exist is out in the hands of another company, and leakage of this sort of information is not good and should be actively prevented where possible.

Luckily, there are more free newsreaders out there. My pesonal favourite is Vienna - an open source newsreader, built especially for OSX. It’s just as functional (no synchronisation of course) and is close enough in look and feel to be an easy switch. We think if you have concerns about information leakage, you should give it a try.

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