News Junkie

News Junkie offers a convenient alternative to browser bookmarks, providing one-click access to various news websites and allowing you to access some of the most popular news sources directly from the desktop.

Once launched, News Junkie runs in the system tray, displaying a two-part gray bar to the far left of the screen. This bar is actually a replacement for a 'silent' button in Windows, meaning that you can mute the volume instantly just by hovering over the darker part of it. Moving the mouse cursor over the lighter area restores the volume to the initial level.

The bar can be hidden if you don't want to see it temporarily or moved around and placed wherever you like. Nevetheless, you must be careful, as a single click on the system tray icon of News Junkie will restore the bar to its initial position, to the far left side of the desktop. Frankly, this is quite annoying, especially when a Windows voice starts telling you about the bar's new position everytime. The same voice is used to explain how to drag the bar or hide it.

Getting back to the main purpose of News Junkie, note that right-clicking on the bar reveals the main menu of the application, which provides one-click access to some of the most popular online news sources, such as ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC. Moreover, it includes links to Google, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. All these addresses can be hidden if you want to.

More importantly than the list of predefined URLs, News Junkie also enables you to customize the list of shortcuts. Unfortunately, it only features three empty spaces where you can enter new websites to create shortcuts for. In other words, its capabilities are limited, which makes it no more valuable than a browser's bookmark manager, and a pretty rudimentary one.

News Junkie does offer faster access to news websites and a quick way to mute the volume, inside an application that is optimized for both mouse and touch control. However, its functionality limitations are obvious and, more often than not, frustrating. More customization options, support for hotkeys, and a more modern look would add it some value, although you might not need it if you work with a good bookmark manager or a reliable feed reader.