I've been using Blogbridge as a feed reader for quite some time, at least since v2.something and it's been one of the first Java applications I've actually enjoyed using. Recently it's become increasingly slow, even hanging, on all of my computers, and I suspect it's due to the number of feeds and unread articles I have. Thats a problem that seems very hard to fix. I've tried unistalling, reinstalling, removing java, reinstalling java and so forth, but I always end up with the same results.
One of the best features of Blogbridge might actually be whats killing it. It has an online service that you can syncronize your feeds with, an excellent idea that lets you keep track of the same feeds spanning several computers as well as updating the read count as you go along. Fantastic feature, but it might very well be the feature that killed my Blogbridge enthusiasm at the same time. Since my unread count was pretty high, mostly due to a Digg feed and a few select Technorati feeds, the creeping slowness hit all my computers at once. That in turn makes it impossible for me to remove the feeds or even mark them all as read. So, there I am. Stuck on three seperate computers, all doing the Blogbridge syncronization dance and turning each other into a slow mess. Initially I blamed Java for all this, but it does seem like more of a Blogbridge issue than anything else.
Naturally, I started looking for a new feedreader, and found, Feedreader. Their website promises a free and lightweight reader, and that seems to be exactly what you get. Thankfully it also has opml support, so I was able to import my feeds from Blogbridge. After looking around a bit, I found that Blogbridge saves it's feeds locally in \documents and settings\username\.bb\final\backups, and after pointing Feedreader to that file all my feeds appeared in Feedreader. Naturally the read count was off, but there is not that much I could do about that.
After using Feedreader a bit, I have a couple of (small) issues with it:
Online Syncronization
Feedreader 3 doesn't offer the online syncronization service that Blogbridge does - Hopefully something like that will pop up in Feedreader too.No photo specific viewing setup
Blogbridge has a viewing mode that differs from your normal feed view, where it displays photo feeds in a special way. I want that in Feedreader too.
But, all in all, Feedreader 3 offers what it promises. It's snappy, works well and it's not made in Java. So far so good!