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By some margin, my favourite is Bloglines Mobile.

The idea of a standalone RSS reader, without having to run on top of a RAM-hungry web browser appeals, but then it has to go off and grab all the feeds in real time, wasting your bandwidth and slowing you down. And then consider that many standalone RSS readers run on top of a Java runtime, which itself usually uses up much of the RAM in a phone or smartphone, making the idea doubly pointless.

Bloglines Mobile scores heavily by letting me access exactly the same feeds (or a sub-set, if required) as I read on my desktop web browser, in the full Bloglines site. And it keeps perfect track of where I got to, so I can read half of the feeds over my cereals in the morning, on my PC, and then read the rest on my phone on the way to work. Because the heavy lifting is mainly done by Bloglines itself, simply presenting me with feed names and numbers of unread stories, I can pick and choose immediately without having to wait while RSS feeds are checked.

And as if that wasn't enough, all Bloglines Mobile-presented feeds are 'Skweezed', so that bandwidth is kept right down and loading speeds are kept more or less instant.

In summary, when configuring a new phone, the very first thing I do is go into the web browser and set Bloglines Mobile as a bookmark. The username and password for an account is retained in a cookie, so there's no need to log into Bloglines more than once.

This post should start by informing you that, I Karl L. Gechlik, consider myself an RSS addict. I need my information and it doesn't matter if I am mobile or in front of a computer... I need to be connected.  I have been using RSS on my mobile phone for along time now. It seems like I have tried every different mobile RSS reader out there. They all claim to be the best of the best and of course better than the competition. After many trials and tribulations I have narrowed this list down to one application that seems to work on all mobile platforms. I don't know about you but most of my friends use it as well. Is this because I push the product? No they see me using it and ask me about it. I haven't had anyone that inquired not wind up using it. There are a few different versions that cover ALL the mobile platforms.

The first application is Egress, this is a small lightweight application that does almost everything i want it to do. Egress allows for import and export of an OPML file, image and pod cast downloading, clipping articles and so much more. The best part of all is the feed actually looks like it is supposed to look - SCORE! I have my Egress set to sync up every 2 hours and whenever i connect it to my desktop. It has been a long time since i got stuck with out any thing to read on the train! Egress devours RSS and Atom feeds leaving no feed left behind. I can use the joggr on my Windows Mobile device to hit up those feeds one handed and share articles with my friends while on the run.

 The BIGGEST problems I had with other applications was their ability to freeze up my device. Now that is the one thing I can not tolerate - when an application makes my phone unusable. So feel safe in the fact that i have not had Egress crash on me once. Don't get me wrong every now an again it will choke on a feed but, Egress skips the feed after a default time out and moves on.

 This application costs $13.00 and has a free trial that will get you hooked! It was written by Garish Kernels who provides his own customer service - and is wonderful!

    

RSS has clearly established itself as the standard for electronic syndication of web content. This content includes the obvious -- news, blogs, web-group updates -- but there are many more practical applications of RSS that are developing every day. For example, customized search feeds from Craigslist.org allow RSS users to monitor postings to the 'Musical Instruments For Sale' section with keywords 'Fender Stratocaster' and price points between $100 and $300. Set the search parameters to your needs/ budget, then click on the RSS link at the bottom of the page to generate a custom RSS feed that displays all of the relevant postings as they are posted. For other sites that don't yet offer RSS as a way to access their content (a rapidly diminishing breed), there are free and easy-to-use web tools (e.g. Dapper) available to create an RSS feed of content from just about any web page, including images and video links. As a result, RSS has become the most efficient way to get the information you need without wasting time digging through dozens of web sites, most of which are crowded with too many options.

Now that you know how I feel about RSS (it's cool), let me tell you about my preferred reader/ aggregator that gives me fast access to all of my feeds. I'm a huge proponent of the mobile Internet, and I'm always looking for new ways to increase the return on my wireless data plan. So a mobile RSS application is at the top of my must-have list. It's kind of like having every newspaper, and every classified-ad publication in the world in my pocket at all times... but much more comfortably. I am also somewhat of a purist when it comes to mobile devices, in that I believe spending several hundred dollars on a phone is excessive and that moderately priced consumer handsets should be held to high performance standards. Needless to say, I was elated at the discovery of a free application for Java-based phones called FeedLion. As you might expect, FeedLion is an RSS feed aggregator that works on common phones, so you don't need a fancy device to take your feeds on-the-go. Streaming navigation is the secret sauce that makes FeedLion best-of-breed in its category because it anticipates your every move to deliver your content in light-speed. So when you click on a headline, there is no waiting -- your content loads instantly in a format designed for the small screen. Other subtle and intuitive features in the UI make it so easy to navigate that it is nearly impossible to get lost. FeedLion even gives you a few feeds to start with based on your selected interests, so you can be up and running with mobile feeds in just minutes. I believe FeedLion is one of the most likely applications to elevate RSS technology from a niche audience to the mainstream.

FeedLion is an ad-supported application, which means you'll never have to pay for it, but you may see a few ads as you browse through content. Download and installation is a snap. The quickest way to get it on your phone is to visit FeedLion.com/d with your mobile browser and click 'Download.'

I'm a big user of Bloglines mobile, in fact it's probably my primary feed reader. I read around 400 feeds, and do this on the train whilst commuting to and from work (a journey time of 2-3 hours a day). Why do I use a server hosted aggregator rather than one on the phone? Many reasons, here are the main ones:

1. Performance - sucking down a whole feed to see if there are any new items is time and bandwidth consuming even with a good 3G signal, plus it needs a lot of storage on the phone to maintain state.

2. Cost - bandwidth costs for 3G data are still not negligible in the UK, flat rate data is available, but it's limited by various restrictions, and the same is true in many other countries. So bandwidth costs money.

3. Device independence - whilst my primary reading is done on the phone, there's still the ability to also read my feeds from a web browser on a "full sized" computer without having to read the same items again. I.e. the state of what I've read and what I haven't read is not kept on the phone.

I've used a number of mobile aggregators, primarily on S60 devices, and apart from specialised niches like podcasts, the disadvantages far outweigh the benefits described above.