BlogBridge
BlogBridge is my new feedreader of choice, beating out Bloglines for me. Partly, that is because I don't need to be using a web-based reader, since I drag my laptop around with me everywhere. But BlogBridge offers exactly what I am looking for.
1. Ease of use. I easily imported my OPML file from Bloglines and can export just as easily when I change to another reader.
2. I can rate my feeds with star ratings that put my most important feeds first on my list, so I always get a chance to read them. Plus, when feeds are updated they are moved to the top of the list based on their star rating. Ones that are not updated, just stay at the bottom of the list, but I don't have to scroll past them at all.
3. I can mark individual blog posts as read or not read, making it much more useful than Bloglines where I have to purposefully mark an entry to be kept as new.
4. It keeps a default number of old posts. I have mine set to 200, so I can always look back over old posts that I have already read when I realize that I forgot to click on something. Very nice!
5. It works with the wide range of feeds that Bloglines does. I have tried so many feedreaders that don't do LiveJournal or Blogger feeds right. This one works perfectly and doesn't argue at all.
6. There is the ability to tag your feeds. As more people do tags for their feeds, the database of feeds will grow. The software will eventually start to offer recommendations for feeds based on the ones you read and the star rating that you have given them. This will be an incredible asset to serious blog readers. I am always looking for new feeds and frankly the Bloglines recommendations never seem to change.
7. The price is right. Free! And even better, open source.
All of that said, I do still like and appreciate Bloglines. If I was bouncing between computers, especially shared ones, I would still be using it. BlogBridge does offer synchronization so that you can run their software on multiple computers, but it does have to be installed on all of them. And nothing beats their Sub with Bloglines bookmarklet. I still use that to find pesky feeds that I can't locate on websites.
I have completely converted to BlogBridge now. And look forward to their new version coming out in the next few months. I think they have a real future if they can continue the way they have begun.