What is NetNewsWire?

Lots of websites have news or updates of some kind; perhaps presented as a series of articles or posts.

Sites also have a bunch of other things — a header at the top of the page, and maybe links and ads and widgets on the left or right (or both). And then some more stuff at the bottom of the page.

Like this imaginary squished-down web page:

Website diagram that shows the good part

The good part is the part in the middle — that’s the part with the articles. That’s the part that you read. That’s the part you’re interested in.

And that’s what NetNewsWire does — it presents just that part of your favorite sites, while ignoring the rest.

Details

That “good part” is actually made available as a specially-formatted text file that apps like NetNewsWire can read. The files look weird — they kind of look like the source behind web pages, with angle brackets and everything.

The important thing is: it’s NetNewsWire’s job to know how to read this file. And it’s NetNewsWire’s job to show you which articles you haven’t read yet.

By doing this — by running NetNewsWire — you can let NetNewsWire find out when there’s something new. You don’t have to go to the websites and check to see if there’s something new. You can save time, and not have to rely on your memory.