RSS Guard is an open-source cross-platform multi-protocol desktop feed reader. It is able to fetch feeds in RSS/RDF/ATOM/JSON formats. RSS Guard is developed on top of the Qt library.

RSS Guard is a cross-platform application, and at this point it is known to work on:

  • Windows 7+
  • GNU/Linux (including PinePhone and other Linux-based phone operating systems)
  • BSD (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, etc.)
  • macOS 10.13+
  • OS/2 (ArcaOS, eComStation)

Supports online feed synchronization with these services:

  • Tiny Tiny RSS,
  • Inoreader,
  • Nextcloud News,
  • Gmail API,
  • FreshRSS,
  • The Old Reader,
  • Bazqux,
  • Reedah,
  • Feedly.

RSS Guard is written in C++. It is pretty fast even with tons of messages loaded. The core features are:

  • Multiplatformity,
  • Support for all feed formats,
  • Simple internal chromium-based web viewer (or alternative version with simpler and more lightweight internal viewer),
  • Simplicity,
  • Import/export of feeds to/from opml 2.0,
  • Downloader with own tab and support for up to 6 parallel downloads,
  • Message filter with regular expressions,
  • Very fast parallelized feed updates,
  • Feed metadata fetching including icons,
  • No crazy dependencies,
  • Ability to cleanup internal message database with various options,
  • Ability to tweak columns in displayed list of messages,
  • Enhanced feed auto-updating with separate time intervals,
  • Multiple data backend support,
  • Sqlite (in-memory dbs too),
  • Mysql.
  • Ability to specify target database by its name (mysql backend),
  • "Portable" mode support with clever auto-detection,
  • Feed categorization,
  • Drap-n-drop for feed list,
  • Automatic checking for updates,
  • Full support of podcasts (both rss & atom),
  • Ability to backup/restore database or settings,
  • Fully-featured recycle bin,
  • Can be controlled via keyboard,
  • Feed authentication (basic),
  • Handles tons of messages & feeds,
  • Sweet look & feel,
  • Fully adjustable toolbars (changeable buttons and style),
  • Ability to check for updates on all platforms + self-updating on windows,
  • Hideable main menu, toolbars and list headers,
  • Feanza-based default icon themes,
  • Fully skinnable user interface + ability to create your own skins,
  • Newspaper view,
  • Support for feed:// uri scheme,
  • Ability to hide list of feeds/categories,
  • Open-source development model based on gnu gpl license, version 3,
  • Tabbed interface,
  • Desktop integration via tray icon,
  • Localizations to some languages,
  • Qt library is the only dependency,
  • Open-source development model and friendly author waiting for your feedback,
  • No ads, no hidden costs.

What's New

Added:

  • Existing read/unread state is respected when some article gets "updated" (infamously happens for YouTube feeds). (#1279)
  • NSIS installer was bit tweaked to warn about MSVC runtime. (#1306)
  • iCalendar files (*.ics, *.ical) are now supported. Note that the support is rather basic.
  • Added more ways of limitting amount of articles in each feed. (#1270, #1267)
  • Added way to use old legacy article formatting in "lite" version. (#1286)
  • New way of fetching articles - new "Source" -> "Built-in web browser with JavaScript support" which allows user to use built-in Chromium-based network stack to fetch feeds and other data. It allows even fetching of majority of JavaScript-powered websites. (#1313)
  • More date/time strings for parsing some dates and times in articles.
  • "Title" column in article list is not directly resizable too. Last visible column auto-stretches to fit remaining space. (#1319)

Fixed:

  • Fix freezing when feed uses crazy crazy loooong URL.
  • Fix crash when forwarding e-mail via Gmail plugin.
  • Add forgotten restriction when cleaning data. (a975714)
  • ETag conditional loading of feeds was semi-broken. (#1314, #1296)
  • All Unicode characters in feed URLs are now supported. (#1310)
  • Reader mode was changing content for all opened browser tabs. (#1300)
  • Some articles were displayed with broken HTML. (#1293)
  • Size/position of all windows (including modal dialogs) is now guarded to not be out-of-screen-bounds. (#1281)
  • No more crashes when adding some discovered feeds. (#1280)
  • Main window pesky splitters saved with 0 position. (#1271)