Shrook - free RSS reader for Mac

I am a longtime user of Google Reader for reading my RSS feeds, but that delay of a couple of seconds while waiting for a feed or a folder of feeds to load – I know it's nothing, but it gets annoying. So I started looking around for a desktop feedreader for Mac, to give me instant response when I click a feed or a folder of feeds.

In the reviews, Shrook kept popping up again and again. This is a free program for Mac that's been around for a number of years. Everyone says it is ugly: "Evidently Shrook's founders are function over form types" "The user interface however, is the worst I’ve seen in a while!" "beneath this ugly carcass lies a beautiful app". It's good enough for me, and it seems to work well.

Below is a 3 minute screencast I made showing Shrook and why I like it. Click the icon in the lower-right to make it full screen.