I do use google reader. It's quick and easy.

I've also used Bloglines, which was good too. I'd probably go with that if you're anti-google.

on preview, the Bloglines site appears to be down. Hmm. Maybe that's not a common thing?

Yeah, I wouldn't use bloglines. I've been having reliability issues with them for ages now. You can't count on them to do what they're supposed to do.

I was headed over to check out bloglines only to find the service down. Not a good omen.

I use bloglines. Well, not right this second, I don't, but you know what I mean. It does the job, except when it doesn't.

I'm a huge fan of NetVibes, which I've used for a few years now and still love it and recommend it to others. NetVibes gives you a lot of control over layout and functionality. You can chose how many items per feed to show, mouse over each item for additional text, choose how the link opens, customize columns, etc. I created about a dozen tabs for various interests, which makes things a bit more ordered, although I know a few people that just keep dozens of feeds all on one page. I haven't updated the layout or features in quite a while since it's been working fine for me, but several of my fellow NetVibes geek friends have told me that there are some pretty cool new features I need to checkout.

If it'll help, here's a screen shot of my front page....
≡ Click to see image ≡
There's a larger version on my flickr page.

Bloglines has been weird for me these past two weeks. Last week I wasn't getting certain feeds. I didn't notice till they fixed it. And it took me a whole week to notice, haha. And now it's been down all day today.
But yeah, I've been thinking of jumping to a non-google ship.

on preview: oooh, *goes to check out netvibes*

Wow, slack, that's pretty cool. I can see how that'd be useful for getting a lot of info really quickly, and skimming the dense sites like metafilter and slate.

I don't have any suggestions - I used a client-side reader for awhile before I switched to Google Reader.

Like Slack I love NetVibes.

Hey, I'm off 'n running with NetVibes. Pretty dang kewl.

I use Bloglines, too. This is the first time I've seen it down, though I've only used it for 6 months or less.

I need more blog suggestions. I mainly read a few craft blogs but I think I like the personal journal types best. Got any good ones?

Bloglines' service has been unreliable for a few months now. I switched to Google Reader a few weeks back. It's just as good, although it annoys me that I can't classify some folders as expanded only and some as list only.

Netvibes for me too. I love it.

I used Netvibes for a couple of years -- right from its launch -- and I wouldn't recommend it to any *serious* RSS fans. It's slow to load all those feeds and crap, and it never seemed able to remember my read/unread items. Their recent-ish transition to a new version ("Sage" or somesuch) was very bumpy. Finally, I think despite the customization options it's almost always a total eyesore.

I'm kind of not into the whole thing right now -- I go through phases of simplifying my Internet life and right now the idea of reading a bunch of websites just doesn't appeal -- but when I need to use a feed again I'll probably use a proper client. Like webmail, an RSS client will *always* give you far more control and far less overhead than a Web application.

Actually there is one feed I use, with alerts related to a site I administer, and I just built a little widget for Yahoo Widgets, to keep it visible on my desktop all the time.

All that being said, don't forget about the similar app Pageflakes.

I used Bloglines until a year ago, when it failed often and they were unresponsive to multiple requests for even an acknowledgement of the problem. I'm kinda surprised they are still around.

I now use Google reader, which I've noticed can be slow to read Flickr photo feeds, and is weird with locked LJ streams (Bloglines was worse, though). I realyl like Google's GUI and star feature.

Seconding everything Riverine said.