AvantGo replacement for Windows Mobile
 

I know it is no longer cutting edge, but I have loved using AvantGo to read the NY Times and Washington Post offline. I have been doing this since my old Palm III but have kept on using it with my various Treos.

Yesterday, AvantGo announced (on my device only, not on their web page) that they are discontinuing their service on June 30.

What are some good replacements for AvantGo for Windows Mobile?

What I am looking for is offline reading of the NY Times, Washington Post, even WSJ (willing to pay for that). I know that this service is not as essential as it once was with mobile devices connected to the internet, but there are still times and places where it is nice/essential to have everything downloaded for offline reading. One that is near and dear to everyone here is on a plane. Another for me is my work where cell signal is poor for all providers.

I use hadnmark express, but don't know that it can download 'offline'

The only news app I use is just an RSS reader - Newsbreak.

Avantgo was awesome, but RSS pretty much killed it years ago.

Does Newsbreak do offline?

Anyone ever used Mobipocket?

I'm disappointed to hear that. I still use it on a Palm Centro, just now synced and it failed. These sync failures have been happening more frequently in the past 2 or 3 months, and I was wondering if something was going downhill.

I've read that an app named iSilo is a good replacement for it, but have never used it myself. Not sure either if that comes in a WM flavor.

I can't help but comment on Handmark Express. I never liked it, it caused my phone to reset numerous times (this was using the version that came with the phone out of the box). I installed it more than once, gave it a 2nd (an 3rd and 4th) lease on life, and always had the same bad results. It's also messy, creates all kinds of files that are extra work to clean up if you want to remove all traces of it completely.

More online research leads me to Newsbreak and SPB Insight as the leading RSS readers for Windows Mobile. Any experience?

Well, the offline portion is whatever the RSS feed delivers - some offer the entire article, while others (like CNN) usually only give you a summary.

Hmmm. I see. For the NY Times, my main target, their RSS feeds seem to offer only summaries. Yet, their mobile site is great with full articles. Is there any way to read the NY Times offline?

The Kindle offers an offline subscription service that is quite impressive. But that wouldn't happen on the Palm.

There are several good options to read your news on windows mobile. I just use the rss reader and it works great. For full article reading I am not sure you will want to do that on a small handheld screen.

I have finally found a solution for the departure of AvantGo.
Like most of us here, I used it extensively when on flights. And like those of us on this thread have noted, 99% of the RSS feeds for traditional news sites are 3-4 sentence summaries.

Easy Free Solution:
http://www.fulltextrss.com/
Give the RSS feed url to this page, then place the output feed URL into your phone. Full text of the article.
Con is that it will only give you 5 articles. One way around it is to use sub RSS feeds. i.e. Business feed, Technology feed, USA feed, Global feed.

Easy Paid Solution:
http://fivefilters.org/content-only/
Pay $10 a month to get unlimited articles per feed.
Give the RSS feed url to this page, then place the output feed URL into your phone. Full text of the article.
Click "show more options" to get info on the "API Key". This will give you unlimited articles.

Harder Free Solution:
http://fivefilters.org/content-only (Near Bottom of Page)
The creator of this solution has the source code available. I tried getting it to work with the Windows WAMP server, but I just got errors.
I then downloaded a linux PHP virtual appliance at http://virtualappliances.net/products/lamp.php and got it working. One tip- the source code also limits you to 5 articles, but you can easily change that value to 40 or higher by editing makefulltextfeed.php

I hope above helps someone.

I also hope it is obvious that I am not a shill for these guys (they are a not for profit, anyway)

I've actually given up in finding an AvantGo replacement for WinMob. Basically, what I really want is the NY Times, and all the RSS readers I have tried (at least 5) are clunky and do not always have the complete articles. I am looking forward to the NY Times app. on the iPhone when I switch in a few months.

My post works with the NYTimes.
Full articles. Even images work. Looks just like avantgo.

Try the first link. Will take you 5 minutes, and see for yourself.

OK, I will try it before my next multi-day trip in a few weeks. Thanks!