There are a few good feed readers out there, but FeedDemon's Google Reader sync, multiple viewing modes, and customizable keyboard shortcuts make it the best RSS reader for any Windows power user.
FeedDemon
Platform: Windows
Price: Free, $20 Pro
Download Page
Features
Syncs with Google Reader
Multiple viewing modes, including a newspaper-like home page that organizes feeds in a more old-school format for easy browsing.
A ton of fully customizable keyboard shortcuts that let you do pretty much anything without ever putting your hand on the mouse.
Single-click sharing to Google Reader
Item tagging that lets you easily search through your read items by tags you assign
Keyword watching that will alert you to any feeds in which your defined keywords pop up
Automatic podcast downloading for audio feeds
Where It Excels
FeedDemon's strengths lie in its configurability: you can view your articles in a long list, like Google Reader, or view them in a more traditional three-pane setup, like other feed readers. The ability to customize nearly every keyboard shortcut in the app is fantastic, too, especially when you have a ton of feeds to root through. Google Reader syncing is also a must-have, and its more advanced features like keyword watching are great for those with tons of feeds. And, of course, it's great for all those things you can't do from a webapp, too, like automatically download podcasts and read your feeds offline.
Where It Falls Short
FeedDemon's biggest downside is its less-than-pretty interface. It certainly isn't a joy to look at, but its power more than makes up for that fact. All our other issues with it are fairly nitpicky, and only affect you if you're coming from other apps. For example, if you view your feeds in the more Google Reader-like mode, it won't automatically expand each article for you—it'll only show you a summary. You need to click on it or hit an extra keyboard shortcut to read the full article. Similarly, in the more traditional three-pane view, it won't let you read all your feeds from a single folder. You have to read each feed one at a time, even though you can read entire folders in the Google Reader view. Again, I'm picking a lot of nits here, but these quirks can be pretty annoying when you first use it. Especially because there's no reason it should act like this when almost all other established readers do it the same way.
The Competition
There are a lot of feed readers for Windows, but none of them are particularly wowing like FeedDemon. If you're looking for something a bit simpler, more traditional, and less ugly, RSS Bandit is a good option that syncs with Google Reader. It's designed to look like Outlook and isn't quite as configurable, but will suit most people just fine. FeedReader is pretty great reader with some advanced features, but doesn't sync with Google Reader, which is a deal killer for many (though if you don't need Reader syncing, it's a very solid choice). Similarly, the open source, cross-platform RSSOwl is also another popular option, though it doesn't sync with Reader, nor is it very pretty.
In fact, if the feed readers on Windows aren't doing it for you, I'd recommend just using the Google Reader webapp. It won't give you offline support or certain advanced features, but coupled with something like the previously mentioned Minimalist Reader extension, you can configure it to your liking and get straight to reading your feeds, without "learning" how to use it.
There are a lot of other news readers for Windows, but we find FeedDemon and the Google Reader webapp to be the most notable, and will suffice for just about anyone. If you have a favorite that we didn't mention, share it with us in the comments.
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