1. RSS is an XML-based format (using the Resource Description Framework (RDF) - a language for representing information about resources in the World Wide Web) that allows the syndication of lists of hyperlinks, along with other information, or metadata, that helps viewers decide whether they want to follow the link. RSS allows a person's computer to fetch and understand the information, so that all of the lists that person is interested in can be tracked and personalized for them. It is a format that's intended for use by computers on behalf of people, rather than being directly presented to them (like HTML).
The RSS reader is able to display any RSS news feeds. I searched many sites and each had different opinions on what they thought were the top 5 readers.Newz Crawler, FeedDemon,Omea Reader,SharpReader and Bloglines. I chose Bloglines to download, basically becuase i thought it was the easiest to use and it allowed you to organize feeds in folders and allows you to save searches. Also, ndividual news items can be cut, emailed and blogged easily.