QuiteRSS: Best Free and Portable RSS Feed Reader Client

Almost all of us browse Internet and visit our favorite websites daily to learn about latest news, tips-n-tricks, etc. Many people use RSS feed readers or aggregators which automatically check for new articles on websites and notify users if there are new articles available on those websites. RSS feed readers are very helpful if you visit lots of websites on regular basis. RSS feed readers let you know about new articles posted on your favorite websites instantly and also allow you to read old articles offline.

In past, I used the popular FeedDemon RSS reader client which was my favorite RSS reader for Windows operating system. I told you how to create its portable edition so that you don’t need to install it in your computer and you can carry it on USB drives:

Create Portable Version of “FeedDemon” RSS Reader for USB Drives

I also created a minimal and clean skin for FeedDemon client to provide simple and clutter-free look to the software. You can get the skin from following article:

Download Clean and Minimal Newspaper Skin for FeedDemon RSS Reader

But FeedDemon was discontinued long time back in 2013 and the developer no longer supports the software. So it’s not a wise idea to use a software which is abandoned and not supported and updated by the developer. You can face bugs and issues in the software and also get security attacks as developer no longer releases updates or patches to the software.

When I stopped using FeedDemon, I started looking for a good alternative to FeedDemon. I wanted the best and lightweight RSS Feed reader which is free of course and supports portable version so that I can carry it on my USB drive. I was looking for an RSS reader which doesn’t consume too much RAM and CPU resources as FeedDemon was very light on system resources.

First I tried several online RSS readers but I didn’t like any of them. Online RSS readers were slow and always required Internet connection even if I wanted to read old articles. I wanted a Desktop RSS feed reader client so that I can use it offline as well without Internet connection.

I also tried browser extensions such as FeedBro, Brief but they also failed to impress me.

Then I started downloading and testing various desktop RSS feed reading software. I tried several popular RSS readers such as RSSOwl, RSS Guard, FeedReader and QuiteRSS.

Many of 3rd party RSS feed readers lacked essential features and didn’t provide options to customize UI and functionality. Some readers were taking lots of RAM (200 MB+) and it was really very high resource usage for an RSS reader.

Finally I selected QuiteRSS feed reader which is free, lightweight and highly customizable. It consumes very less RAM and CPU resources. Most of the time the RAM usage is under 20-30 MB.

It also comes in portable version so you don’t need to install it in your system. You can also carry it on your USB drive. I wanted a portable RSS feed reader because I save it on a different partition other than the system C: drive. It allows me to format C: drive whenever I want and reinstall Windows or other operating systems without touching RSS reader. As soon as I reinstall Windows, I can start using the portable RSS reader in same condition as I left it before formatting and reinstalling Windows. No need to reinstall, customize and adding RSS feeds.

You can import feeds from older RSS reader in OPML or XML file format so you’ll not need to add all websites feeds manually.

You can show or hide all toolbars and menubar. You can customize all toolbars and add/remove buttons. You can move the news reader/browser position to top, bottom, left or right. By default it’s shown at bottom.

It also supports themes and comes with a few themes such as System, System2, Green, Orange, Purple, Pink, Gray.

You can set it to remain on top of other apps (F10) and can also use it in full screen mode (F11).

If you open its Options/Settings/Preferences window, you’ll find several options to customize its UI and functionality. Some of them ar given as following:

• Disable startup splash screen/banner
• Set it to launch at startup with Windows
• Disable sending usage information (telemetry and data collection)
• Show/hide system tray icon
• Minimize the app to system tray when minimizing, closing or starting the app
• change system tray icon to show new or unread news count
• Disable images, javascript, plug-ins
• Enable/disable notifications of new content
• Change UI language
• Customize fonts for feed list, news list and browser
• Change colors of everything such as background, links, text, etc
• Customize keyboard shortcuts

It also supports labels and filters.

It’s open-source and can be downloaded for Windows, Mac OS, OS/2 and Linux.

Download QuiteRSS News Reader

I’m still using QuiteRSS feed reader and it’s one of the best and most popular RSS feed reader.

Don’t forget to subscribe to AskVG RSS Feed, if you haven’t subscribed yet.

Which RSS feed reader do you use? Feel free to share in your comment…