These desktop clients can help to better organize and manage your feeds, and can act like a proxy. That is, if Google reader is blocked at your workplace, still you can check all your feed subscriptions by synchronizing Google Reader with these desktop clients. Other reasons to use desktop software client for Google reader include :
You can read subscriptions even when you are offline.
You get better speed for browsing in a software then in online Google reader.
Better search and sorting capability in desktop clients.
And you can easily customize software, based on your requirements.
Let us look at the best, top-in-class and free Google Reader Desktop Clients that you can choose from: FeedDemon: The Best Desktop Based News Reader FeedDemon is the best RSS Reader for Windows. Its free and its easy to setup. FeedDemon provides lots of customization options that others lack. Some of the useful features of FeedDemon are:
GReader synchronization, so that you share same content across different places.
Sharing capabilities, to share interesting articles with friends.
Tagging, for easy management of feeds.
Watches, for instant notifications of your pre-defined keywords.
Searching, for easily finding your missed feed.
And automatically downloading of Podcasts.
Download FeedDemon from here. RSSBandit: The Outlook Styled Desktop Client RSS Bandit offers a Microsoft outlook style browsing pane to view all the subscribed feeds. If you are the email person, and spends most of the time on MS outlook, then you won’t have any trouble in understanding and using RSSBandit. The latest version of RSSBandit will have facebook integration and office ribbon. Its open source and synchronizes seamlessly with Google Reader and NewsGator Online. Download RSS Bandit from here. Desktop Google Reader with Pretty Notifications Desktop Google reader is a very basic, uncluttered and easy-to-use desktop client for GReader. It has beautiful notification system and the application allows you read, share, tag and star items of feed. Download Desktop Google Reader from here. For Mac Users: Gruml Desktop Application Gruml is a GReader desktop app for Mac OS X. It works pretty much like Google Reader except that it is your desktop app. It remains in-sync with GReader all the time i.e. any changes done in Reader or Gruml is reflected in other in real time. It also allows you to tag, share and post your feeds. Its still in beta, that means it is not stable or perfect yet but pretty much useful. Download Gruml app from here. Bonus: Official Google Reader Gadget If you are gadget/widget type of person, then this utility developed by Google engineers in their 20% time, is just made for you. Unfortunately, it works only with Google Desktop. Download it here.