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NetNewsWire is now free

by Kristian Freeman

NetNewsWire, one of the best RSS readers for Mac OS X, has been updated to version 3.1, and along with that, the software is now completely free.

NetNewsWire was created by Brent Simmons, and version 1.0 was released in February of 2003. In 2005, a company called NewsGator purchased Ranchero Software, Simmons’ company, and their application NetNewsWire. In June 2007, NetNewsWire 3.0 was released, and added integration with iLife products and Growl support, as well as a new interface. As of version 3.1 (released January 10, 2008), NetNewsWire is completely freeware, and offers support with Bloglines and NewsGator’s RSS syndication service, as well as a tabbed browser built-in and an interface quite similar to Apple’s Mail client. Brent was also the creator of Marsedit, a popular blogging client for Mac OS X that was purchased by Red Sweater Software in February 2007.

According to an Ars Technica interview, Simmons, creator of NNW, is “totally excited about NetNewsWire going free! It’s an ideal situation, a developer’s dream come true: I get paid to work on software I love, and everybody can use that software. How sweet!” It appears that NewsGator is now offering all of their RSS readers for free, such as NetNewsWire and FeedDemon.

NetNewsWire has been briefly covered before on Apple Reporter in the post “What’s on your Dock?” where it was shown that I myself use NetNewsWire. I use it to gather all my Mac related feeds (my news source for writing), such as Macworld and TUAW.

NetNewsWire can be downloaded at the NetNewsWire homepage at NewsGator.


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About Apple Reporter

Your source for Apple news and rumors. Product reviews, how to guides, and our take on Apple's cutting edge technologies, all under one site. Come here first for your Apple a day - it helps keep the Windoze away. Does your company have new software, Apple product, or accessory you'd like us to test and review? If so, contact us to schedule a review and interview. Kristian is a part-time blogger, part-time student. He also writes for his own personal blog, kristianfreeman.com. He's also a Mac fanatic, and hopes someday to be able to carry around one of those cool iPhones. If you want to contact him, he can be reached at kristian.freeman@451press.net.

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