The Bottom Line
Pros
- Shrook has clever ways of organizing news including learning folders and a Scrapbook for saving
- Distributed checking helps you get the latest news first
- Shrook lets you synchronize read items, channels and groups between copies
Cons
- Shrook does not integrate popularity indexes, RSS searches
- The wide screen interface used by Shrook is ideal only for wide screens
- More, custom flagging options would be nice, and Shrook's news display can't be customized
Description
- Shrook is a RSS and Atom feed aggregator and news reader.
- Individual channels can be organized in custom folders in Shrook, and Spotlight is used for search.
- Shrook also supports virtual folders, collecting relevant news using criteria and keywords.
- In addition, Shrook can use Bayesian statistics to learn from example what you want in a folder.
- A frequently updated channel guide integrated in Shrook suggests feeds for easy subscribing.
- Distributed checking among Shrook installations can reduce the workload for popular sites.
- Shrook can export news items to iPods and supports OPML for subscription synchronization.
- Old items can be purged automatically by Shrook while scrapbooked items are retained indefinitely.
- Via a shrook.com account, you can synchronize multiple Shrook installations automatically.
- Shrook supports Mac OS X 10.2+ and Safari 1.1+.
Guide Review - Shrook 2.5 - RSS Feed Reader
When it comes to the news, the latest and most relevant are the greatest — and the ones Shrook lets you see first. A clever RSS feed reader for the news junkie, Shrook uses distributed checking to make sure you can always fetch new postings a few minutes after they happen. The aim is also to reduce the workload for popular sites, but I'm not sure this works.You don't have to be addicted to news to make good use of Shrook, however. Its way of organizing feeds and the ability to customize article display are useful to everybody, as is the channel guide and the easy search feature that returns results fast using Mac OS X's Spotlight technology.
The best part is Shrook's leveraging of Bayesian statistics for folders that automatically learn from the items you put in them to make like articles show up there automatically (the thing is not that smart and you to know what you will like, however; it deduces keywords to look for). You can also set up "Smart Groups" that automatically aggregate relevant news from all your feeds based on a very flexible set of criteria and keywords.
Subscribing to new feeds is as easy in Shrook as it is to forward an item by email. Shrook can also integrate third-party blog editors so you can post easily.
