We’re constantly talking about ways of dealing with information overload, so it’s a happy day when a tool can truly make a difference. Today, that tool is Idea Shower’s ReadItLater.

Along the same lines as InstaPaper, LaterLoop and others, ReadItNow is simply a Firefox add-on that helps you save a list of pages for later reading. Better than regular old bookmarks, it’s for those pages you want to read when you have a moment but maybe not keep around forever.

ReadItLater has been around for over a year, but this week with version .99, it got insanely useful. I understand why other sites have been talking about it so much.

You can read and save pages on any computer, any platform, even a mobile device (yes, an iPhone). If it’s not a Firefox-based browser, you can use a bookmarklet to save your page.

There’s an offline caching feature so you can catch up on your reading even if you don’t have an Internet connection. Great for plane reading.

You can sort your reading list by Quality (aka PostRank, formerly AideRSS), so you are sure that you are reading the best stuff first.

You can toggle something called “Click to Save Mode” so when you’re flying through your Netvibes or Digg pages, you can quickly collect those sites that interest you and skim them later. I’ve gotten into the habit of loading Netvibes first thing in the morning, opening the pages I want to read in multiple tabs and working through them throughout the day. Doing this in ReadItLater makes much more sense.

The new Google Reader integration is simple and well done. Click the check to add the post to your reading list, without having to actually load the page just yet.

The only bug I found is that it’s not 100% compatible with all 3rd party Firefox themes. If it’s not displaying properly for you, try switching back to the default theme.

Happy Halloween!

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