RSS Aggregator > Download > Requirements and features
Requirements
The Aggregator's requirements are largely driven by those of the .NET framework:
- Windows Vista (any version), Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Home Edition, Windows 2000, Windows NT 4.0 (Service pack 6a or later), Windows ME or Windows 98
- Internet Explorer 5.01 or later (we have checked that the Aggregator works well with Internet Explorer 7).
Although Internet Explorer is a requirement, you can instruct the Aggregator to use your default browser (which could be Firefox or Mozilla, for example) to display pages. Screen shot. We have also built an interface that allows you to integrate the Aggregator with FireFox 2.0.
Technically the Aggregator can use a dial-up connection, but you will only get the major benefits from RSS if you have an always-on Internet connection.
The Aggregator takes only a couple of megabytes of disk space.
Version
The latest version is 2.7. You can see the improvements we made in this version - and, if you are already using the Aggregator, which version you are running - here.
To install this version, follow the install procedure here. Note that this will not replace your settings or your channels.
Features
The Aggregator monitors RSS and Atom channels you are interested in, and alerts you to changes. Screen shot
Here's a list of the main features:
- The Aggregator contains no spyware or adware. There are no hidden activities. Nor is there a professional version. You get the full version for free and without any hindrance or restriction.
- The Aggregator comes with context-sensitive help and lets you know if there is a new version available. Screen shot
- Support for all the major RSS and Atom standards and versions (and flexibility to correctly interpret some feeds that do not adhere to the standards). Flexible support for downloading Podcasts and other types of enclosure - including BitTorrent files.
- Range of alert methods:
- Alert boxes appear on top of other windows and do not take the focus (you can continue typing an Email, for example, without disruption)
- Each alert shows you a brief description of all new and changed items in a given channel
- Alert box size automatically adjusts to the length and number of new and changed items
- You can specify alert box colours, text size, opacity and screen position
- You specify what, if any, sound is played when an alert is displayed
- You get a simple facility to identify items that are specially important. These are shown as newsflashes which have separately defined colours, text sizes and opacity
- Special purpose alerts - with separately defined colours, text sizes and opacity - to let you know about new enclosures (Podcasts)
- An option to allow you to 'snooze' the Aggregator for a specified time period; you do not get any alerts while the Aggregator is snoozing
- You can suppress on-screen alerts for any or all channels
- You can temporarily suppress all alerts from all channels regardless of any other settings
- The Aggregator shows an icon in your system tray which changes if you have new or changed news items available, or if the Aggregator is not monitoring for changes for any reason
- Automatic detection of Internet availability means the Aggregator runs silently while you are not connected
- Flexible methods for reviewing news items:
- Headlines shown in the alert boxes
- Channels and items are shown in a standard tree view; icons show you the status of each channel and item
- You can view channels as a simple list, or you can organise them into categories
- Extensive use of tooltips to display additional information
- Click a channel to display a summary of news available in a channel; click links in the summary to show detailed news items
- Click an item to show detail directly
- Option to show summaries and news items directly from alert boxes
- Support for mice with Back and Forward buttons
- You can choose to open any web page in your default web browser so you can review it at your leisure while continuing to receive news alerts
- You get a button that places a shortcut to any page onto your desktop. That way you can go back to any page any time you want, or send the link on to someone else that might find it interesting
- There is a trend towards including adverts with news items. The Aggregator provides a tool to identify and suppress adverts so you never see them.
- You control what happens after you review items. If you track an item the Aggregator will alert you to changes. Alternatively you can instruct the Aggregator to ignore changes to the item. You get a variety of ways to specify what to do with items:
- You can specify to track or ignore all items directly from an alert box - giving you a fast, simple way to review items during the day
- 'Not now' buttons allow you to dismiss alerts for later review
- Ignored items are suppressed from the tree view by default (but you can toggle display of ignored items on and off)
- You can update status of an item by right-clicking it in the tree view
- There is an option to automatically start tracking all news items you read
- There is an option to ignore all unread items automatically when you close the main Aggregator window
- You get flexible methods for deciding when to look to see if there are new or changed items in a feed:
- You specify how often to look for changes in each feed; for example you might update a news feed once an hour and a slow-moving feed once a week
- You can ask the Aggregator to add a random time to each update interval so you do not get all feed updates shown to you at the same time
- There is a facility to update a channel immediately
- There is a facility to update all channels immediately
- A download summary screen that lets you review all enclosures (Podcasts) available to you and which gives you control over which ones you download, and when. The summary screen also shows you progress with each download as it happens. Screen shot. You can also:
- Disallow or allow running of downloaded files of a given type, or you can provide a tailored warning
- Specify how to execute a downloaded file of a given type overriding the Windows default action.
- Built-in support for the weather feed provided by the Weather Channel. We looked into a number of RSS weather feeds but could not find one that worked particularly well with RSS. Having said that, there's nothing to stop you using an RSS feed if you find one you like. Instead, we have integrated the Weather Channel feed into the Aggregator so you can specify:
- The locations you are interested in tracking. The Weather Channel provides data for all US zip codes plus thousands of cities worldwide
- Whether you just want current conditions or whether you would like a forecast; and, if so, how many day's forward (up to 10) you want to forecast
- Whether you want the Aggregator to retrieve weather data for you automatically; and, if so, at which times of day
- Whether you want the Aggregator to raise an alert when it retrieves weather updates
- Good use of screen real estate:
- During normal use only a tray icon is visible
- Most of the screens can be resized
- You can move the split between the tree view and the internal browser on the main screen
- Option to display or suppress the browser toolbar
- You control the appearance of the main screen including: font, size and colour of the tree view; and size of text shown in the internal browser
- Support for finding new feeds and simple facilities for adding them to the Aggregator. It comes with a subscription utility that implements the two standard approaches to automated feed subscription. Click here for more details. Click here for more detail about how the Aggregator helps you find feeds.
- You can change all the Aggregator's settings from a single options window Screen shot
- Support for access to secure feeds protected by user ids, passwords and encryption:
- Support for both basic HTML access control as well as session-based (cookie-based) access controls
- Passwords are stored using secure triple DES encryption
- You can choose to have passwords encrypted with an internal key - or one that you specify (ensuring people cannot see your passwords even if they have their own copy of the Aggregator)
- The Aggregator looks for and removes potentially malicious HTML elements from feeds. Since they are capable of executing programs on your PC, they can be used by unscrupulous feed providers to by-pass some of your security measures. The Aggregator displays a warning message in the feed summary so you can see this has happened and - if you have any concern about the feed provider - unsubscribe from the feed.
- The Aggregator supports a number of methods to reduce the data transfer overhead when communicating with feed suppliers. This ensures the Aggregator follows accepted good practice and protects you from defensive actions from feed suppliers against 'badly-behaved' Aggregators. For example, suppliers can raise spurious error messages and can send truncated feed data. The supported methods include:
- Use of 'Etag' and 'Last-Modified' request headers to allow a feed server to use a short message to tell the Aggregator there have been no changes since the last time it looked for updates to the feed.
- The Aggregators supports data compression. This significantly reduces the data that needs to be sent by servers that also support compression. The Aggregator supports the industry-standard gzip and deflate standards.
- The Aggregator honours requests from feed suppliers to implement minimum intervals between requesting feed updates.
- The Aggregator identifies periods when you are not using your PC and automatically stops looking for feed updates. It resumes automatically when you start using your PC again. This ensures the information you get when returning to your PC is as up to date as it can be as well as cutting data transfer overhead. You can, of course, alter the inactivity period or disable the feature altogether if you prefer.
- The Aggregator displays channel summaries and weather information using web pages. The appearance of these pages is determined by CSS files. You can alter the appearance of these pages (for example, you can: switch to a different font; or change the way links are shown) by creating your personal CSS files from the ones we supply.
- Channel definitions can be exported and imported using the OPML standard. You can import/export all the available channels or just the ones you select.
- Support for a wide range of installation options:
- Simple installation using the standard Windows installer
- Manual installation for maximum flexibility
- Does not require installation of system objects or DLLs so the Aggregator cannot interfere with other programs
- Does not require Administrator access to run and does not invoke Vista's User Account Control (UAC)
- If a PC is used by multiple ids, each one's details are held and maintained separately
- In a network that supports roaming ids, a person's details move with them from PC to PC
- Can be installed on locked down PCs
- Full support for proxy servers; the Aggregator can inherit Windows and Internet Explorer settings, or override them
- Proxy server definitions can be by-passed for individual channels in order to support intranet or development access
- Can be used from multiple PCs sharing the same data
- Can be used by multiple users of the same PC each with their own data
Accesskey links: Skip navigation | Home page | Accessibility | Contact us | Accesskeys