Freeware February: ANT

ANT falls into the ridiculously cool category. It’s an RSS video aggregator with embedded media player that allows you to subscribe to any RSS 2.0 feed with enclosures and download fresh audio and video content to your OS X Mac. It builds a playlist of new items and can play them back directly within the application. It also syncs with iTunes so you can deliver your favorite podcasts to your iPod.

Azureus does the same thing, but the setup is more complex and the interface nowhere near as intuitive. With ANT I simply clicked one button, collected the new items from all the default feeds and had enough content to keep me entertained for several hours. What surprised me most was the high quality of the media - I was completely fascinated by almost every feed. This app is a most refreshing dive into the growing sea of videobloggers and citizen journalists; entertaining, informative, and extremely fun.