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Show HN: Telescope – News and RSS Reader
- mediocrejoker 8y agoAny details on how it compares to eg. Reeder?
- meteor333 8y agoThe focus is more on a central home feed which shows posts based community votes, very similar to reddit or HN
- arbitrage 8y agoIs there an android version?
- meteor333 8y agoSorry not yet. Hopefully ill be able to get to it soon. Please check out web version meantime - https://telescope.surf https://telescope.surf
- aphextron 8y agoI’m sure it’s wonderful, but I’m not giving my email address to an RSS reader. Thats kind of the whole point.
- djrogers 8y ago> Thats kind of the whole point. What? How is that 'the whole point' of an RSS reader?
- 0xCMP 8y agoIn the spirit of not being tracked by someone like Facebook, he means that he doesn't want to be identified by an email and therefore have a possible profile built on him based on what he subscribes, reads, saves, etc.
- trevor-e 8y agoThat's definitely fair, but like the OP is saying, how is that the entire point of using RSS? RSS itself stands for Really Simple Syndication, there's nothing saying that clients can't provide extra convenience and features behind a login/profile. I don't think people use RSS feeds to have more privacy.
- pmoriarty 8y agoI completely agree, which is why I will never use any kind of RSS reader "service". Instead I use Newsbeuter[1], a great standalone RSS client. It runs completely on my own machine. I don't have to give out my email address to anyone else nor do I have to tell the owners of any service what I read or what my interests are. That's completely my own business. [1] - https://www.newsbeuter.org/ https://www.newsbeuter.org/
- miles 8y ago>> I’m not giving my email address to an RSS reader. Thats kind of the whole point. > What? How is that 'the whole point' of an RSS reader? To be able to subscribe to information sources without having to give away any personal data, start getting spammed, etc. Seems especially relevant in light of all the recent (if belated) privacy concerns surrounding social media.
- meteor333 8y agoRegistration is to help you save your feed preferences. Web version is open for all - https://telescope.surf https://telescope.surf
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- aphextron 8y agoThis is really fantastic actually. I wish OP had just shared the web version.
- MaysonL 8y agoHow difficult is it to get another email address?
- Digital-Citizen 8y agoYou've missed the point: users should get privacy by default and make choices to preserve their privacy, not have to dodge service requests (like getting another email address) to keep their privacy. The point isn't technical, it's ethical. Services you should handle yourself on your own computer (like RSS feed reading) can be done for you but when they're done for you they become "Service as a Software Substitute" or "SaaSS" (see https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-s... for more on that). A SaaSS RSS feed reader grants others power over what you're allowed to read, when you're allowed to read it, and that choice also empowers others to track you in your reading. If you don't value your privacy you'll lose it and then you'll likely come to regret losing it after it's too late and you've given trackers enough information to predict your habits.
- tallanvor 8y agoYour ToS starts off by stating "This agreement is a legal contract between you and us.", but there's no definition of who "us" is, there's no page that I can find identifying who you are or what your registered address is in case of a dispute. Edit: I'm looking at your web page (I don't have any Apple products, so I can't see what your app has).
- meteor333 8y agoBoth have the same TOS. We are in process of forming an entity. It will be updated soon.
- miles 8y agoAs a greybeard still running Blosxom, I love seeing the resurgence on HN lately around RSS feeds. My setup: 1. https://feedhq.org/ https://feedhq.org/ for syncing between mobile and desktop or reading via web browser. $12/year or grab the source and host it yourself. Easily import/export OPML, so you're in charge of your subscriptions. 2. http://reederapp.com/ http://reederapp.com/ for reading on iOS and macOS 3. Inspired by Slow Feeds (recently renamed as Web Subscriber http://zoziapps.ch/web-subscriber-5-0/ http://zoziapps.ch/web-subscriber-5-0/ ), I added a new "Slow" folder with all of the high-quality, low-frequency feeds. Made my daily reading far more pleasant.
- jasonkostempski 8y agoI love seeing the resurgence too. I wish the HN site would give some more love to their RSS options. /rss is OK but I'd like to see a separate feed for everything in /lists and a feed that will allow me to monitor responses to comments, by user or by specific comment, like what /threads?id= shows, so I don't have to constantly rescan that to see if anyone has replied.
- johnchristopher 8y agoNot RSS but there's an email notification service for HN that is very nice http://hnreplies.com http://hnreplies.com
- jasonkostempski 8y agoSeems nice but, for me, a major benefit of RSS is not having to give out personal information or creating a new account. I've been activley deleting accounts anywhere I find RSS can replace it, like YouTube.
- edavis 8y agoYou might like https://edavis.github.io/hnrss/ https://edavis.github.io/hnrss/ Feel free to open a Github issue with any feature requests. "RSS feed of replies to a comment" is a particularly good one. I'll definitely look into adding that.
- usuallymatt 8y agoI've been using telescope.surf on and off since it first launched. I really love it and it renders rather well on Firefox for Android.
- meteor333 8y agoThank you for being the regular user! Let me know how i can improve it.
- skanga 8y agoA new poll puts Beto O’Rourke just 3 points behind Ted Cruz in Texas This was in the sports section
- meteor333 8y agoSorry categorization is not perfect yet. Still working on it.
- jeena 8y agoLet me pitch you a different way of doing it. I use TinyTinyRSS https://tt-rss.org/ https://tt-rss.org/ as a backend to synchronize what I've already read but I don't like the UI so I wrote a desktop app as a front end: https://github.com/jeena/feedthemonkey https://github.com/jeena/feedthemonkey I sometimes read my feeds on the phone too, there I just use one of the many apps compatible with TTRSS.
- meteor333 8y agoThat's very neat. Great job! I'll give this a try.
- ocdtrekkie 8y agoI also do this. In my case, since my mobile and desktop both run Windows, I use TheScientist's Windows 10 client: https://www.microsoft.com/store/productId/9WZDNCRDMBN3 https://www.microsoft.com/store/productId/9WZDNCRDMBN3
- jamesbvaughan 8y agoI just recently started using tt-rss. I use the web version (with the feedly theme) occasionally but usually use it from newsboat. What mobile apps would you recommend?
- bpye 8y agoNever tried tt-rss but have tried Freshness and ended up settling on Miniflux as my preferred reader. Miniflux: + Single binary, no Cron jobs + Easy to run in a container - nothing is stored to a file - everything in the DB + Supports Let's Encrypt out of the box + Simple fast UI + Fever API support, good readers exist for iOS, less Android (working on that though) - No web push notifications - No PubSubHubbub support (though I couldn't make that work with FreshRSS either) - No maintained Android clients (if in wrong please tell me!) - Only supports PostgreSQL FreshRSS: + Richer feature set + Push notifications + PubSubHubbub + Android apps, though they aren't perfect - More moving parts, needs Cron, PHP - Harder to run in a container - Web UI is worse on mobile [1] - https://freshrss.org https://freshrss.org [2] - https://miniflux.net https://miniflux.net
- godinaa 8y agoWhy a max char count for password?? The max of 12 is awfully small. Edit: The app is quiting when I try to scroll through Ars Technica in List view.
- meteor333 8y agoThanks for pointing it out. Let me check and increase the limit. Edit: Its fixed now. Increased to 128
- michaelbuckbee 8y agoThank you for that. Note: the trouble is that if you use a password manager it will create arbitrarily long and very secure passwords for you that _far_ exceed what you would expect for a "normal" limit.
- meteor333 8y agoSorry didn't think about that. Can you tell me what is generally accepted limit for password managers or in general?
- LyndsySimon 8y agoWhy have a limit at all? You should be comparing against a hash anyhow, which is fixed length. I generally use 128-char passwords by default, and only use shorter ones when a service requires it.
- gunnr15 8y agoI like it. Have you thought about adding any simple Social features yet?
- meteor333 8y agoCan you elaborate on that? Currently the social feature I have is that you can upvote the posts and your feed is compiled based on the upvotes it received across the Telescope community.
- netsharc 8y agoI'm not the original commenter but a user could have friends, so a user can see what feeds her friends are reading and upvoting. And so you'll have invented the Facebook News Share function... do try not to steal any elections if you do ;)
- meteor333 8y agohaha. I'm wary of information bubbles so trying to avoid "personalizations", but yes some sub-view with social feed would be nice to have.
- MaysonL 8y agoYou could add commenting.
- meteor333 8y agoDefinitely coming up. Commenting will require a lot of thought and effort so keeping that for later.
- gunnr15 8y agoI would be cautious about adding any features that would lead to trolling, but I think it would be valuable to be able to “follow” my friends and see what article they have read and Think are “valuable”. The only “commenting” I would enable would be private DMs, and Even then I would encourage that to be via email or SMS.
- jboles 8y agoSweet! Tired of the Apple news app shoving crap down my throat that I don't want to see.
- redindian75 8y agoYou can tailor AppleNews to just follow topics or sources u want....
- github-cat 8y agoYou can follow http://www.pxlet.com http://www.pxlet.com if you don't want to get lost in all the different sources and it comes with bunch of other features. I check this one everyday now.
- Alterlife 8y agoThe initial checkboxes (where you select news sources) are really slow. There's a half second lag for me between touching the screen and seeing the checkbox get checked in the UI. Are you rendering the checkbox as checked only after a server trip returns?
- meteor333 8y agoCorrect. Sorry about that. I'll fix that to have instant feedback and uncheck only if server throws an error.
- netsearcher 8y agoLooks really clean.I built something similar http://newsofworld.org http://newsofworld.org. It's not an app but a real time responsive site.Click on category , country etc. and you'll get news as it comes in.
- johnmc408 8y agoOne more vote for being able to use your app w/o signing up. My current RSS reader doesn't require a signup...
- meteor333 8y agoWeb version doesn't require signup - https://telescope.surf https://telescope.surf. Considering opening up iOS app as well.
- webwanderings 8y agoYour website is pretty good as is; works well on the phone. Not sure why would I install an app. I particularly like the fact that some of the pay walled stories open up fine within your site (not sure for how long you'd be able to do this - minus the WSJ). The only missing piece sometimes, is the name of the author, if it is an opinion piece.
- jclos 8y agoNote that the default settings of PrivacyBadger breaks your app by not letting load anything outside of the Home feed (clicking on the other feeds just refreshed the Home feed).
- strict9 8y agoyeesh, excitement brought back to zero. unless it's an app to sync with a web app I regularly use, registration required = delete.
- MaysonL 8y agoEnable landscape, please!
- meteor333 8y agoI disabled it because it looked awkward reading a feed in small height window. I'll test again and reconsider it.
- douglaswlance 8y agoHow is this better than Feedly?
- JustSomeNobody 8y agoRequires iOS 11 or higher. I'll try it some other time. I'm just not ready to give up 10.3.3 on my 6S yet.
- leotravis10 8y agoI would have stayed on iOS 10 on my 6s if it weren't for the KRACK Wi-Fi vulnerability.
- ASalazarMX 8y agoCould you open it to more countries? Seems nice, but it's not in Mexico's App Store. I'm using FeeddlerRSS out of the limited options of good RSS readers in my country, but I'd like to try others.
- meteor333 8y agoIt is available in all countries actually. May be your language settings is limiting the app? It’s only in English for now. Or App Store takes time to index the app in all countries. Please check back in that case. Sorry for trouble.
- ASalazarMX 8y agoI apologize, it is there. I assumed it wasn't because the search "Telescope" showed some apps ending with "scope", then some astronomy apps and after that a bunch of non-related games. Thanks.
- fairpx 8y agoIt should be available world wide
- leotravis10 8y agoAlthough this is interesting and looks good, I don't think its going to be better than what I have now in Feedbin.
- SnowingXIV 8y agoIs there a way to subscribe to certain keywords?
- meteor333 8y agoComing up soon. Im working a way to subscribe to topics and keywords
- SnowingXIV 8y agoAwesome! Look forward to the release, that would be super useful.
- ccifuentes 8y agoThis is a free app and looks pretty cool, but may I ask how do you make profit?
- meteor333 8y agoIm planning to add premium subscription feature soon.
- greentuna 8y agoHere’s my take on a minimalist RSS reader: https://teamdashboards.com https://teamdashboards.com This is a work in progress. Customization doesn’t work yet. I’d like to get feedback. If many people like this interface I’ll continue developing it.
- samgee 8y agoI started using it a few weeks ago, and finding it really useful. It has made to the front page of my iPhone! Good work.
- meteor333 8y agoAwesome! Thank you! Let me know how I can improve it.
- ajoy 8y agoNews based on popularity is inherently biased. A quick look through the web feed shows that most, if not all news are from left-leaning publications.
- oblib 8y agoI bookmarked Telescope.surf when it was first announced here. I've grown to like it a lot. In fact, just this morning I bookmarked on my iPhone too. I like the idea of a "app", but the web site works fine and I don't put many apps on my phone but I'll just keep using it as is in Safari. It's especially nice since Apple mucked up their "News" app in their last upgrade and I've not used it near as much since.
- meteor333 8y agoThanks for using the app! Let me know how I can improve it.
- princekolt 8y agoNeeds an account? Pauses music on startup? WTF is going on? License agreements? What the heck is this app up to? I immediately uninstalled it, sorry.
- kyoshiro 8y agoI'm using rss2email with multiple categories on a dedicated IMAP account + sieve to organize into IMAP folders (using + email separator) and discard / filter topics I don't care about.