I installed Shrook 2 today. I had low expectations, and I'll admit the only reason they were low was because the web site was rather unprofessional looking.

Even if the site had been a thing of beauty, this app immensely EXCEEDED my wildest expectations! Shrook 2 is truly awesome software. It has a number of features that are truly incredible, like Distributed Checking (which means you get updates way faster without added bandwidth burden on the RSS feed servers), Smart Groups, the ability to flag (mark) items, and the ability to view the web page the item points to right in the app (it uses WebKit).

Oh, and you can have multiple Shrooks have synchronized subscription lists and read-status of items. That alone is a killer feature. At the bottom of the File menu is an "Import from NetNewsWire..." command. It worked perfectly and seemed to do its job instantaneously on my PowerBook G3 500.

I love NNW as well, but Shrook 2 meets my needs better. I've always wanted to be able to mark RSS items and share my RSS item database over more than one computer. I'm going to give Shrook a thorough evaluation over the next few days, and if it is stable, I will be registering the software.

I never thought we'd see a better RSS reader for OS X than NetNewsWire, but IMHO, Shrook is better. In the long run I hope it ends up being a positive thing for Ranchero rather than a negative thing, but I wouldn't be surprised if I'm not the only person that switches in the short term.