13 ms·

Poll: Do you use Google Reader on a daily basis?

309 points by tnorthcutt 15y ago

yarone 15y ago
Yes, and it really needs to be improved! It's been neglected for too long.
chrmaury 15y ago
Thanks for creating: http://twitter.com/#!/cmaury/status/95607756299571200 http://twitter.com/#!/cmaury/status/95607756299571200
Ronkdar 15y ago
I use Reader on a nearly hourly basis. I suppose I should stop that...
smhinsey 15y ago
It's been basically my primary portal to the internet since it came out. Other than HN and reddit, which don't really produce super useful feeds, I don't really browse any sites directly anymore. I have always been looking for the next big thing to replace it, since there hasn't been a tremendous amount of effort put into it lately, but nothing has compared. The feature that I have been sort of daydreaming about is the ability to use your subscriptions to weight your search results so that sites you've subscribed to are ranked higher.
- tbh 15y ago
  You may prefer a modified reddit feed [1] where the article URL is the main RSS item URL, which makes the RSS feed much more useful. [1] http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?_id=bnYqwjiA3RGJxTckBR50VA&_render=rss http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?_id=bnYqwjiA3RGJxTckBR...
  - smhinsey 15y ago
    Thanks, that does look useful. It might be a good way to follow some low traffic subreddits without subscribing to them. My main beef, however, is less with the content of the feed per se and more with the fact that they are in a fixed order, so you lose the curation aspect of voting.
- chrmaury 15y ago
  That would be a very interesting feature. My Reader search results are by far more useful than google.com results. I'm also waiting for post to G+ from reader. Read Later would also be very useful.
  - smhinsey 15y ago
    Yeah, I'd settle for a high quality search within reader itself, realizing that integration into the main search might be impossible. I find it really confusing that the "Share" link in Reader still goes to Buzz, which is sort of associated with my G+ profile but not quite, in that it doesn't seem that people who are in my circles are necessarily able to see them.
  - PierreTouzet 15y ago
    The Instapaper bookmarklet works great in Google Reader :)
- cpeterso 15y ago
  "Hacker news Overload" has HN RSS feeds for posts rated >= 20, 50, 100, or 150: http://talkfast.org/2010/07/23/a-cure-for-hacker-news-overload http://talkfast.org/2010/07/23/a-cure-for-hacker-news-overlo...
  - smhinsey 15y ago
    Hm, thanks, I'll check that out. I'll probably still hit the site directly, but it'd be nice to have that archive in my account.
- sraquo 15y ago
  Shameless plug for more useful HN feeds: http://hnapp.com http://hnapp.com - filter posts by points, keywords, etc. and subscribe to the results by RSS.
  - karussell 15y ago
    Hey, then I can also put a link for http://jetsli.de http://jetsli.de here ;) The next version will contain the possibility to include any rss feed and rank them to your personal needs. At the moment the first ten of your searches are used to boost articles if your are logged in.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
brg 15y ago
Why? Is this market research for a new reader, or is this tool next on the Google chopping block and your looking for demographics.
- chrmaury 15y ago
  I was just curious. I'm addicted, and I wanted to see if other people felt the same way. When they dropped Reader from the global nav. I was very upset, but was glad to see there was enough of a ruckus to get it put back. I don't know that I would pay to keep Google from axing it, but I would consider it, and thats saying something.
  - realgt 15y ago
    i would definitely pay to manage my rss feeds via its UI or at least through an API
wslh 15y ago
Yes, one of the main advantages is having all the historical posts there, since RSS is used only for latest posts. Another feature is automatic translation, I follow a blog from Ukraine there.
- abraham 15y ago
  In my experience Reader doesn't store all historic posts. Posts older then a month or two start disappearing.
  - carterschonwald 15y ago
    What is an example you have? It seems that it has historic posts as long as anyone else every has followed the feed via Reader previously. Likewise, it won't display old posts in the list, but will dynamically load them as you "try" to scroll down. Perhaps one of these is what would happen for you?
    - abraham 15y ago
      There isn't a specific example feed. It used to happen for all unread posts. I don't know if it still happens or not as I don't leave enough posts unread anymore. The exact behavior was with several hundred unread posts in Reader with the oldest unread being 2-3 months old the oldest posts would slowly disappear. I know it was happening because they would be posts I wanted to read but didn't have time to so I would notice when they disappeared. It is possible they were still in Reader in a read state but I never bothered to check.
      - carterschonwald 15y ago
        this is actually (apparently) a intentional behavior, old posts that you never personally marked unread will after a month or several be marked read. I only recently discovered this myself, and yes it is an intentional behavior. (how else would you be able to handle reading all the newer articles? :p)
abeisgreat 15y ago
I pretty much leave reader open my whole work day and jump over to it whenever I get some down time.
parweb 15y ago
yes
lftl 15y ago
I generally use Feedly (http://www.feedly.com/home#my http://www.feedly.com/home#my) now, mostly because their Android client is much faster, at least for the way I read. They sync subs, and status with Reader so you can bounce back and forth. Their web client really isn't any better than Google Reader's but it's somewhat habitual now to go there instead of Google Reader.
- gorm 15y ago
  I really don't like their android client too much and prefer the native google reader client on android. Btw. here is a small tips with Feedly that I enjoy (for Firefox): You can also install this plugin: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/new-tab-homepage/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/new-tab-homep... Then you set feedly as your default tab open page. I see it everythere I do a Ctrl-T and because I quick-peek it many times a day, I can keep up with a large number of feeds.
  - jahmed 15y ago
    I've abandoned the native app and just use the web version of reader bookmarked onto my home screen. Its works great and saves precious space on my Nexus One.
- Sephr 15y ago
  If you're looking for a good Android client for Google Reader, I'd recommend Reader HD (https://market.android.com/details?id=com.ageofmobile.reader https://market.android.com/details?id=com.ageofmobile.reader), which is vastly superior to the official app.
swah 15y ago
Missing option: Yes, but would use something better.
- estel 15y ago
  Given the subjectivity of "better", who wouldn't?
  - swah 15y ago
    Exactly. But I mean, some folks might be 99% happy with it, I'm 60%.
deleted 15y ago
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tshtf 15y ago
I ssh into my server and run Newsbeuter (http://newsbeuter.org/ http://newsbeuter.org/). I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a console based RSS reader.
mstjern 15y ago
Yes
bentruyman 15y ago
I've been using Fever for (what I think is) a few years now and haven't looked back: http://feedafever.com/ http://feedafever.com/
- warp 15y ago
  Do you use the Hot / Sparks feature at all? I also use fever, but that particular aspect of it doesn't seem to work for me -- so I just use it as a regular rss reader.
  - fendmark 15y ago
    I am also a big fan of Fever. I actually use the Sparks feature a lot. It has completely changed how I use RSS, from attempting to read all my feeds to just reading what is "hot." The key is finding RSS feeds of sites that are link aggregators on topics of interest to you. The Hacker News RSS feed is actually a classic example of a great site to add as a spark in Fever.
jbui 15y ago
Yes, although I rarely ever use their web interface to view the feeds. (I use reeder, if your curious)
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
ugh 15y ago
Do you mean Reader as a service or Reader as a web app? I use Reader clients across all my devices daily, I wouldn’t be caught dead using the Reader web app daily. It’s horrific. (I will use it if I happen to be in front of a device where I cannot install anything and only have access to a web browser.) The service is great, the web app is not.
- shinratdr 15y ago
  > I will use it if I happen to be in front of a device where I cannot install anything and only have access to a web browser. Really? Usually in situations like that I either pull out my phone and use Reeder for iOS or visit the websites directly. Google Reeder's web client might as well not exist, it's just so bad. I'm actually kind of surprised there isn't a Google Reader web app replacement that is popular or well known. I would be interested in a "Reeder in the browser" solution like that occasionally.
anigbrowl 15y ago
Yes, but I find it very frustrating in some respects. It essentially performs a similar function to Gmail, but using an interface that feels 5 years out of date. I really hope that G+ is the beginning of a more integrated approach to input stream classification and management. It drives me nuts that Reader doesn't provide any method for construction of tagging rules, trackback analysis, or filtering.
jinushaun 15y ago
As far as I'm concerned, Google Reader is the internet. I rarely interact with websites directly.
jbk 15y ago
I use Tiny Tiny RSS (http://tt-rss.org/ http://tt-rss.org/). Open source, with a correct mobile web version and an Android application.
- p4bl0 15y ago
  Ah! I have to try that! I a heavy Google Reader user but I would prefer something installed on my server that I can completely control. I tried a few ones but none were even close to Google Reader in term of usability, but I never tried Tiny Tiny RSS. Thanks for the link :-).
bernardcornet 15y ago
NO
losvedir 15y ago
Yes, but basically only on my phone.
rjd 15y ago
You are missing the option "Yes, but via a third party client" As I normally use net newswire and reeder, both tying into google reader, but I hate the web site interface.
Dysiode 15y ago
I tried Reader but it's not in my face enough to remember it, instead I use Opera's built-in RSS reader which has notifications (I imagine Chrome + Reader could have notifications like Gmail Chat).
riceadam 15y ago
No, but I use Reeder.
- YooLi 15y ago
  Ditto. I used Google Reader until I found Reeder for Mac and iOS. Reeder syncs with Google Reader so technically I do still use it, just not the web interface.
- YooLi 15y ago
  Ditto. I used Google Reader until I found Reeder for Mac and iOS. Reeder syncs with Google Reader so technically I do still use it, just not the web interface.
siddhant 15y ago
I use NetNewsWire (http://netnewswireapp.com/ http://netnewswireapp.com/). I usually open up a lot of tabs in my browser, so I try and move things away from it as much as I can. Plus, native apps look better than web apps, at least for now (and at least on Macs).
forkrulassail 15y ago
A bit of an addict, frankly. Trying to avert the damage with instapaper and my Kindle.
ajpatel 15y ago
I used to use Reader religiously...then I finally spent the time to find all those sites' Twitter feeds and shifted everything over to Twitter...it took forever but it's infinitely easier to share things now.
panacea 15y ago
Does via a widget on iGoogle count?
- davidwparker 15y ago
  I'm in the same boat. I use Google Reader, but pretty much (99%) of the time via iGoogle.
zmanian 15y ago
yes
mhd 15y ago
Yes, and one of my few wishes for chrome would be something like Firefox' (hidden) "open new windows as background tabs" preference, then using the 'v' key would become an order of magnitude more productive. That's my usual response for TL;DR blog posts. Browse through the whole list with your vi-keys, pick the ones that don't fit (or lose too much essential formatting) for other tabs, skim through the rest within the reader. As opposed to gmail, I could probably switch to something else if it had a half-way decent mobile version. Reeder isn't that essential to me.
- abrowne 15y ago
  Try the Chrome extension "Google Reader Open entry in background tab": https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lcimnckjiicikfpppcgnjhiflibbnbel https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lcimnckjiicikfpppc...
  - mhd 15y ago
    Thanks, much appreciated.
adyus 15y ago
Another option I find myself using more and more often is Newsblur.
Adaptive 15y ago
Reader is also great for managing podcasts via "Listen" (Google's Android Podcast app). Nice because they show up with the rest of my RSS feeds.
- orofino 15y ago
  This actually annoys me, if I mark a new podcast read in reader it never downloads and queues on the phone if it hasn't already polled and seen the new item. I end up marking them unread over and over until I check to see if my phone has actually downloaded them.
  - Adaptive 15y ago
    I use the Android interface most of the time and only occasionally use embedded player via reader. I do subscribe and manage my subscriptions a lot via the reader interface, however. I am not surprised if you've had trouble with the Listen app, however. It's really languished. Podcasts seem to me one of the still killer content features of our smart phones, yet we're still waiting for a rev on this app. For a while I was reading that the dev team behind it was focusing on the next gen "Listen and Watch" app, but who knows where that is. Love android, but some core apps are really half finished.
tomislaw 15y ago
no
wccrawford 15y ago
Yes. I found this post with it.
neilbowers 15y ago
Yes, but via Reeder. I gave up on using Google Reader directly.
shinratdr 15y ago
Does that include Google Reader clients? I have used the web interface maybe twice in two years, but I use Reeder on my phone & Mac every day.
there 15y ago
i used bloglines for a long time until they started having problems with feeds not consistently updating. i was comfortable with their interface, so i just duplicated it (http://den.im/ http://den.im/ - http://i.imgur.com/0e8jc.png http://i.imgur.com/0e8jc.png) and created all of the code underneath to fetch feeds. i added twitter oauth support so that twitter streams look and update just like rss feeds (but with posting/replying support). i added voting so that there could be a frontpage full of popular stories, and a mobile version that looks decent on android/iphone. but by then google reader had taken off and my few beta users had switched to that, so now i'm the only one still using it and the voting is useless. i'd probably just abandon it for something else but i haven't seen anything that integrates rss feeds, twitter, package tracking, and has a decent mobile interface. so for now it just remains a side project.
- sygeek 15y ago
  I would love to try out den.im. I will appreciate if you share an invitation with me. (email address is in profile details)
  - there 15y ago
    sent.
- zephyrfalcon 15y ago
  It seems Bloglines is back, sort of... I'm trying it out as we speak. For some reason I really dislike Google Reader's user interface. :-/
btcoal 15y ago
Yep.
thom 15y ago
I store my blogroll on Google Reader, and sync it to NetNewsWire on my Mac and Reeder on iOS. It often makes me wish Twitter tracked read/unread information across devices. Never use the web interface though.
whatgoodisaroad 15y ago
Yes. I have it open 100% of the time.
quintinsykes 15y ago
Just gave up Reader after using for a couple of years. I found I could get the same benefit following the same people/blogs/publications in Twitter and using Instapaper for stuff I wanted to read later. For me, it's one less thing to keep up with.
aurynn 15y ago
Yes, but I'm in the process of moving off google-hosted things, so I'll need to figure out a new topology for this...
aorshan 15y ago
I just use rockmelt as my browser and have all the news websites I care about on my edge. That way its all there when I want to see it and can see whenever anything is updated.
ahmetalpbalkan 15y ago
I use Reeder for Mac, which is an app for Google Reader. it uses Google Reader, but I don't use its web interface.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
mikebracco 15y ago
Going to actual websites to consume news is like taking the subway to work instead of a private limo. Who wants to sift through 55 share buttons to find the content.
_delirium 15y ago
Currently not too often. I go back and forth on RSS overall, and am sort of undecided. Pro, versus normal webbrowsing: I don't end up doing the nervous-tic "reload to see if there's anything new on site A, then site B, then site C..." procrastination dance. Cons, versus normal webbrowsing: 1) Everything gets put into a standardized layout, while I like the different kinds of design around the web, some of which aren't just aesthetic but include different paradigms (magazine-type versus forum-type versus link-sharing-type site layouts); 2) I end up feeling like I have this constant backlog of stuff to read, as if it were another email inbox, while it's easier to ignore old content when loading up a website. My compromise is that for now I have only 4 blogs in my RSS feed, which update infrequently--- some of them not even more often than one post every 1-2 months. I have them there because they update infrequently enough that I'd forget to check, but I do want to see new posts when they arrive. Other sites I either check regularly in a browser, or I read whenever someone shares an interesting link to them, or whenever I remember, depending on the site.
tlrobinson 15y ago
I used to go through cycles reading RSS feeds and declaring RSS bankruptcy, but I've given up. I need a priority queue RSS reader. Show me the N most "important" posts across all my feeds since I last visited. Importance would be calculated a number of ways: * Prioritize posts from low volume feeds. I probably want to see every post from a friend who blogs once a month, but not every post from Engadget. * Most favorited/liked/whatever, especially among my friends. * Similar posts to things I've favorited/liked/whatever in the past. * Manually tagging certain feeds as important. Also, I have this problem other "streams" of information, like Twitter, and email (Gmail's Priority Inbox is a good start). Some people I follow post a lot of useless stuff, but I still follow them because they're friends or sometimes say interesting things. Is there anything remotely like this out there?
- RossP 15y ago
  Shaun Inman's Fever[1] tries to do some of this. Items that are linked to from multiple feeds float to the top of your reading list. You can also add "sparks", which you will never get to see the contents of however they will be used to help figure out which other items to float up to the top of your list. Self-hosted, PHP, $30. Works on Desktop and has an iPhone skin as well. [1] http://feedafever.com/ http://feedafever.com/
- qcassidy 15y ago
  Google Reader's "sort by magic" (under "View settings") might work for you: """ A third option, Sort by magic will rank items by "magic." Personalized magic ranking is automatically generated, taking into account your past reading behavior (including liking and starring) and global signals. We'll do our best to display items in the most relevant and interesting order -- click the Like button on things you think are important or enjoy reading, and we'll learn to put items like that first. """ http://www.google.com/support/reader/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=69980 http://www.google.com/support/reader/bin/answer.py?hl=en&#38...
  - tlrobinson 15y ago
    Looks promising, I'll try it. Ideally it would hide all but the top 10 or 50 or 100 posts, and if I finish reading those I could see more. Opening up an RSS reader and seeing hundreds or thousands of unread posts is discouraging.
joelhaus 15y ago
HackerNews is easy to include in your Google Reader Send to menu (just like the bookmarklets functionality). Go to settings: http://www.google.com/reader/settings?display=edit-extras http://www.google.com/reader/settings?display=edit-extras, click the "Send to" tab, click "Create a custom link" and add these strings: Name ~ HackerNews URL ~ http://news.ycombinator.com/submitlink?u=${url}&t=${title} Icon URL ~ http://ycombinator.com/images/y18.gif
jaxn 15y ago
I use NetNewsWire every morning on my iPad. However, it is pulling from Google Reader. My feed reading has changed drastically though. I used to subscribe to over 200 feeds, now I try to keep it under 20 (and not every feed has updates every day).
barik 15y ago
I actually use a version of FeedDemon (http://www.feeddemon.com/ http://www.feeddemon.com/) which is essentially a desktop application that can integrate with Google Reader. So technically, the answer is between "Yes", and "No, but I do use another RSS reader on a daily basis".
jonmulholland 15y ago
Not anymore, Twitter lists + Flipboard have totally replaced Google Reader for me.
conesus 15y ago
I used to use Google Reader, but I found that I missed seeing the original site and that I couldn't easily filter out stories I didn't want to read. So I built NewsBlur -- http://www.newsblur.com http://www.newsblur.com. It's open-source and I'd love if more folks followed my development: http://github.com/samuelclay http://github.com/samuelclay. It's been a weekend project but it's been a wild ride so far. One of my main goals is to have much of the functionality of Google Reader, most of which has slowly made its way into NewsBlur. I'm currently working on a free iOS app for NewsBlur. I also put out an API so that others could also make their own feed reader. But really, I missed seeing the original site more than anything. It looks like a security hole, but NewsBlur actually just proxies the site and displays it back to the user. And the intelligence slider keeps me sane, since I slide it towards green and my unread count comes down to a manageable level.
- gst 15y ago
  Wow... One of the few websites for which I immediately bought a premium account.
- micampe 15y ago
  Hey, not my thing but the way you detect the current post and synchronize the list and content is really slick. Also, no offense, but you should ask some designer friend to polish the UI because this looks very good already and it can be even better.
  - conesus 15y ago
    I'm a hacker, what can I say? The design I think makes a lot of intuitive sense. The visual layout leaves a little something to be desired. But then again, that's how you know NewsBlur is legit and not some fly-by-night.
    - micampe 15y ago
      Yes, I was talking mostly about visuals. But again, very good job.
- 15y ago
dfischer 15y ago
I stopped using RSS a year ago. Too much shit. I filter what's important through my Twitter followers now.
- dfischer 15y ago
  Didn't mean to offend anyone with "shit" - I really meant "too much information to sift through."
whalesalad 15y ago
I gave up on RSS... I get most of my news through Twitter and HN actually.
arjn 15y ago
I use google reader on my Transformer tablet (Android). While it's not perfect, its reasonably usable and works well.
knewter 15y ago
Yes, multiple times a day.
charlax 15y ago
Yes, I read (or skim through) about 200 articles a day (it takes me 30'). I refine my list on a monthly basis and make sure only relevant RSS feed are listed to make sure I am not overwhelmed.
tednaleid 15y ago
I leverage Google Reader, but never go to the website. It stores my subscriptions and current read state. A variety of clients synchronize the latest results. NetNewsWire on the desktop, Reeder on the iPad and NewsRob on my NexusOne Android phone. Not sure which one this falls under, but I picked "No, but I do use another RSS reader on a daily basis".
encoderer 15y ago
I changed an ex-girlfriends life with Reader -- I swear to god. She's a (semi) extreme couponer and deal hunter. Every day there's dozens of give-away's. Good, expensive stuff. Be the first 100 to click on this link, or the first 25 to take that survey, etc. She followed a dozen+ blogs every day to stay current on these things. When I set her up in Reader and she discovered the "Next Item" button, it changed her life. It was really pretty great to be able to help her like that and see her eyes light up.
- chrmaury 15y ago
  Thats how I felt when I discovered Reader. I went from browsing like 8 websites to 80, in the same amount of time. Reader made me more intelligent.
rahilsondhi 15y ago
I used to check it daily, but now I've stopped because of information overload. The most important news finds its way to me (eg through Facebook or Twitter shares), otherwise, I'm much more productive just getting some work done.
ssp 15y ago
I switched to http://fastladder.com/ http://fastladder.com/ after bloglines became unusable.
dunhamda 15y ago
I use Google Reader daily, but I probably would not have participated in this poll if I didn't.
alain94040 15y ago
Warning: this poll is useless due to high selection bias. Why? Most people who don't use Google Reader will not bother to click on the link to the poll. I don't see how to correct for such a huge bias.
chrmaury 15y ago
I see Reader is my main consumption service, and I see G+ as my potential broadcasting service. That being the case I would like to see more integration. like = +1 Share= Share on G+ Share w/ comment = Share with comment on G+ Are there any other features? related to G+ or otherwise?
zapjp 15y ago
yes
hbzhang 15y ago
I do not use Google reader. I just tech news droid app. It is good enough! GR seems an old concept already.
TodWait 15y ago
I use it, but get a sense fewer people are using it than a few years ago. Most people I know get their interesting links by connecting and following smart folks on Twitter and feeding their links to PostRank.
rednaught 15y ago
I've been using Feedlooks (http://www.feedlooks.com/ http://www.feedlooks.com/) which also a Twitter client built in. It also takes care of the "mark as read" problem when subscribed to a large number of feeds.
barista 15y ago
my yahoo is my reader of choice.
adsrikanth 15y ago
I used to and now, it seems to be a time killer so, I removed my feeds. It's a great resource for filtering jobs from sites like craigslist.
lionhearted 15y ago
There's no voting field for "I use it sporadically," or that's what I'd have voted. I check HN first, my favorite blogs directly second, and the current forums I'm reading third. If I have more time to burn (rarely), I sign in to Reader. I liberally built up my RSS feed with lots of things, so it's great for skimming, but the signal:noise ratio isn't all that great. Hence, my fourth choice for getting some information/entertainment.
simcop2387 15y ago
I use google reader as an aggregator for my feeds and pull them in with Liferea to actually read them. It makes it really nice to use since it keeps all of the readers in sync between machines.
Duff 15y ago
I love Reader. It amazes me that Google keeps creating these new "social" features, where they have a great social thing going already. I share stuff and discuss things with my colleagues on Reader. Somehow, they launched Google+ without any integration!
- frossie 15y ago
  This. If Google went poof tomorrow, the lack of Reader would be the one thing that would leave me bereft. On the iPhone, I use mobileRSS as the UI, but I use the web app directly on the desktop. I assume the OP question was to establish whether one would use something else, and Plus integration would definitely affect my answer. If there was a tight integration (like, share to a particular circle) I would be less tempted to jump ship, but I have to say I am more wedded to Reader that any other Google product simply because by searching the "Shared" section I can find almost every single thing I have found interesting on the web [I share to one person only, either directly from the RSS feed or to Reader using Shareaholic].
jdietrich 15y ago
No, it's a skinner box [1]. The mere existence of a URL with a limitless amount of relevant, interesting content is toxic to my productivity. Even if I have it blacklisted, the temptation plays on my mind, my dopamine receptors dancing at the prospect of a slot machine that dispenses pure novelty. I use a cron job to e-mail me a daily digest of the RSS feeds I can't do without, which decouples cause from effect - I know what time I'll get my daily fix, so I feel no urge to ^r^r^r. I also have HN on maxvisit:20, minaway:300 and have blocked Reddit, BoingBoing and other skinner boxes on a router which I can't control. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber
athst 15y ago
I have never been able to get RSS to work for me - I'd always subscribe to a bunch of feeds, then they'd pile up into hundreds of unread posts, and then I'd just go numb to it and end up visiting the site itself like I did before. But now, Twitter has filled this hole for me - most every site or writer of significance has a Twitter feed, and it's easy to follow them. I don't feel obligated to read down this huge stack of accumulated posts, so there aren't any mental barriers to use it. In addition, you read the content on the site itself, in the format that it was meant for (or you add it to Instapaper). Twitter is sorta like RSS for normal humans.
- kayoone 15y ago
  Exactly. With RSS i never got into the habit of checking it consistently because there was just too much stuff i did not care about so quickly i dismissed it. With twitter i follow great people from all the areas i am interested in and they usually have very interesting stuff to say and share. So if something is interesting i will just email it to me. I have tried Instapaper to save interesting stuff for later reads but then i have the same problem of not checking it again after some time because i dont have much time to check it and the stuff piles up. With emails i need to get my inbox clean and will check the article and then eventually save it to Instapaper if its long or worth a reread.
dym 15y ago
The missing option is: "Yes, and I wrote code for it" :) BTW have you tried to enter the Konami code into Reader?
- jokermatt999 15y ago
  Do you still work on it, or have you just worked on it in the past?
realgt 15y ago
i loved Google Reader until i started using feedly which is how reader _should_ have been implemented. i've been cycling through 15K+ items per month on reader for several years now and don't ever see myself not using rss for content discovery
gmartres 15y ago
Wow, that's unexpected. I'd have thought the HN crowd would be keen not to depend on Google for too many services. Especially when there's a lot of open source alternatives and when it appears that Reader does not even support something as basic and important as offline reading: https://www.google.com/support/forum/p/reader/thread?tid=5fc63079a1c035b3&hl=en https://www.google.com/support/forum/p/reader/thread?tid=5fc... Personally I use Akregator(http://userbase.kde.org/Akregator/fr http://userbase.kde.org/Akregator/fr) What's so great about Reader?
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
st3fan 15y ago
Yes, but indirectly. I use the awesome Reeder app for iOS and OS X. Which grabs stuff from my Google Reader account.
tvaughan 15y ago
Yes, but via Feedly.
gkanai 15y ago
Yes
skilesare 15y ago
Where is the option for 'hourly'?
horza 15y ago
No, I use Mixtab for Mac, it's available on the Mac App Store.
mikeklaas 15y ago
No, because RSS readers are still stuck in the mindset of email clients. Unread counts. Keep track of read state for everything. It's better than nothing, but not much, especially for non-techies. A better answer would be something like HN: isn't limited to certain sources, the best content floats to the top, and is in tune with the idiosyncrasies that set you apart from mainstream nonsense. [1] [1] Oh look, I built just that http://zite.com http://zite.com :)
borland 15y ago
Where's the "Yes, but I never actually use the interface, only third party apps like Reeder on iOS" ?
imagetic 15y ago
No / Yes. I use Reeder daily on the Mac and iPad. I can't stand going to Reader, the UI sucked so bad for so long. Reederapp was a huuuuge win.
mikecsh 15y ago
I use it indirectly to sync NetNewsWire on my Mac, iPhone and iPad. I don't use the app itself though.
flarg 15y ago
Yes
therationalme 15y ago
Yes... although I should probably moderate my rss habits with a little more discipline
SonicSoul 15y ago
yes, and also Reeder for OSX and iOS. keeps all devices in sync. i wish i found a similar setup for podcasts. i've been trying to use itunes but that is a disaster when you use multiple computers.
klochner 15y ago
So google has more than 90% RSS reader market share? That seems surprisingly high to me.
- a3_nm 15y ago
  Hackernews is a biaised sample.
zobzu 15y ago
I use Firefox live bookmarks. I tried many feed readers but I never find them as convenient. I must be broken.
elmindreda 15y ago
Every morning starts with coffee and Liferea.
mcherm 15y ago
"Everyone says" blogs are dead. Maybe they've been replaced by Twitter. But for me, reading blogs is essential: I learn a great deal from them. Many reputable news sources also have RSS feeds. I read from several different locations so I need a web-based tool to be able to keep track of what I have read. I'd be happy to use another tool, but the only decent one I know of is Google Reader.
lilc 15y ago
I didn't use it much until I found you could interact with it via an API. This is what got me using it: http://cpansearch.perl.org/src/GRAY/WebService-Google-Reader-0.19/ex/ http://cpansearch.perl.org/src/GRAY/WebService-Google-Reader...
sinamt 15y ago
If you're a Google Reader user you may want to checkout this Chrome extension I built that enables full content feeds. It adds readable content or iframing of feed entries. Settings are per feed or folder and are transparently built into Google Reader. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/khbjahpecnkenngkidhioicnfpakihgo https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/khbjahpecnkenngkid...
ggarron 15y ago
I use it to have synced my Reeder app, both on my iPod and on my Mac, great app, hardly recommend to anyone.
krhebbar 15y ago
Yes
virtualpain 15y ago
No, but I do use Reader at least weekly. I use RSS reader to avoid blog's annoying advertisement (although some blogs has ads in their RSS but that less annoy) and heavy load theme (yes my internet connection suck)
rman666 15y ago
Yes, many times per day.
ghanashyam 15y ago
once a week.. as feeds increase I want to spend more time on it
moonlighter 15y ago
I'm using NewsRack (which sync's with Google Reader), so implicitly I'm using Google Reader (just not it's web UI).
ftwinnovations 15y ago
Yes
gphilip 15y ago
Yes
LordBodak 15y ago
I love Google Reader! For Android users, I highly recommend D7 Reader - https://sites.google.com/site/d7reader/ https://sites.google.com/site/d7reader/ It's quite a bit better than the official app.
Sindisil 15y ago
The one feature gReader is missing, which may drive me to an alternative, is the ability to chose a set of items to mark as read. I can "mark all as read", of course, but I'd like to be able to eliminate items I can tell from the title are not of immediate interest.
budman 15y ago
I have been an everyday RSS user for a few years now. Jumped around trying Bloglines, a few desktop clients, Google Reader, some unknown smaller sites, etc over that time. Finally I found my perfect aggregator and have been using it daily for about 8 months now. I even took it upon myself to donate a few bucks to developer. Simple, free and open source: http://rsslounge.aditu.de/ http://rsslounge.aditu.de/ Only catch is it requires your own host/webserver with PHP/SQL and a quick installation. But well worth it for me as I just dropped it onto one of my websites.
pknerd 15y ago
No
yuval 15y ago
yes
ilovekhym 15y ago
Yes
thirdsun 15y ago
If Reeder for iPad is considered as using Google Reader, then yes, daily. This is without a doubt my most used iPad app and very essential for my daily routine.
Fuzzwah 15y ago
I self host a copy of rnews http://rnews.sourceforge.net/ http://rnews.sourceforge.net/ which I've hacked up to do a heap of extra things, such as tweet links which I click on (I use this as a simple history system). I was never a fan of the g.reader layout and toyed with a boxed layout on an igoogle page similar to what I have set up in my rnews system but it felt clunky.
- Fuzzwah 15y ago
  Also, while we're talking rss.... yahoo pipes is brilliant. I use it to mash up a whole stack of feeds and convert pages which don't have rss into rss. http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/ http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/ Anyone who uses rss and hasn't messed with pipes is missing out on a whole heap of awesome.
brevityness 15y ago
My heart is with Reeder for Mac - http://reederapp.com/mac/ http://reederapp.com/mac/
fredley 15y ago
Yes, online as well as Android app.
beefman 15y ago
"Since April 18, 2007 you have read a total of 118,679 items."
siri 15y ago
I use reader more than my gmail... sad to see no UI or feature development on reader since longtime..
SkyRocknRoll 15y ago
Yes
jcasman 15y ago
These days it's daily but that comes and goes. It's like any kind of reading, way overloaded which means periodically I consciously give up or... just never get around to it. The Mark All As Read is a key function for me, so I can start fresh.
kleim 15y ago
No, I prefer 'river of news' style aggregators like Zencancan.
quattrofan 15y ago
Love it, but it really needs a link into Google+ asap
NARKOZ 15y ago
no, I use reeder.app
iphoneedbot 15y ago
You guys will think im crazy.. but I use wordpress, feed aggregator, and embedly.
NathanC 15y ago
I use http://fmeme.com/ http://fmeme.com/ and get endless content curated by category
rhizome31 15y ago
I use Netvibes. Good to see other interesting news readers suggested here. I'll give them a try. I avoid using Google products as much as I can. I still have a Gmail address that some people use, but it forwards to another address. I should probably set up an auto-reply to tell people to stop using it. I still have a site on App Engine that I need to migrate (will give me a good excuse to try Flask or Brubeck :-) The only Google product that I think I'm going to keep using is Youtube, because it has content I can't watch elsewhere.
orionlogic 15y ago
Yes. Google Reader is my bookmark manager in cloud.
Concours 15y ago
I use http://www.nerdzine.com http://www.nerdzine.com on a daily basis for my rss news.
navpan 15y ago
No, but I use it on a weekly basis
defmoves 15y ago
Yes, Mostly mobile reader while commuting.
robgough 15y ago
Switched from Bloglines many moons ago, and never looked back... I use Reeder on my iPad, Helvetireader2 as a browser script and don't ever really use it on my phone, but when I do I'd use the mobile site.
hgarg2011 15y ago
Yes, on Mac and Android phone. I do use other RSS Readers which in turn connect to Google Reader,
aab1d 15y ago
No, not really.
anuj 15y ago
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sage/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sage/
coley 15y ago
Yes, via @feedly
2nd_planet 15y ago
I use it maybe monthly; but not daily.
erikb 15y ago
I'm an IT student in Germany and must say that there is basically nobody here who uses RSS readers at all. The only reason for RSS in Germany seems to be that tools can also read it (like mobile apps for facebook and co.)
mattmanic 15y ago
Yes, use it every day on my Mac, and use Reeder on my iOS devices.
Airballman 15y ago
YES.
spindritf 15y ago
I use Liferea, it came with the system. Tried Google Reader once but its import feature messed up the order the feeds were in and treated hierarchic folders as a flat tag space which, after years of being accustomed to my feeds in a certain way and next to one another, killed my enthusiasm for it.
perl 15y ago
Yes I do use google reader
gtzi 15y ago
No, Twitter has over time replaced Google Reader for me. I don't know how to feel about it.
CedriK 15y ago
Yes but may look for another reader. Because they don't add some new features.
urlwolf 15y ago
I use the opera feed reader, it's fantastic. Much faster than greader to move around, works offline.
robjohnson 15y ago
Each and every day.
pauljonas 15y ago
Love Google Reader, have ~2,500 subscriptions, it is the only RSS reader that could handle such volume -- NetNewsWire make my Mac sputter and smoke with only ~300 feeds or so. Many might be aghast at the humungous subscription set, but I do not do RSS like email -- it is more akin to a stream I surf, skim and dip. And it is lightning fast, permitting me to breeze through content in a rapid pace. That said, I am astonished at how Google has allowed it to languish and stagnate, or by adding incomplete and inconsequential features. * One of the big reasons I made the switch was the ability to search feeds, but sadly, of late, it looks like "search" (which I thought was the bread and butter Google raison d'être) functionality has deteriorated, not as robust or comprehensive as even a year ago or few months ago. * No public API. * Control to let me jump in at a given time point in the stream. Sometimes due to just mistakenly hitting a hotkey that refreshes and resets when I'm in the middle of a stream. Or it might be that I just want to jump to feeds earlier than 8 hours ago, 3 days ago, or 3 months ago.
radonc 15y ago
Best way is to use Google Reader with Post Rank plugin. They have one for Opera and Chrome but not for Firefox. It filters your stream based on how the article has interacted in real time; I think it is a measure of social metrics. Despite constant emailing, PostRank has not released an add on for Firefox and now they have been acquired by Google; I doubt whether Google would even care for the "other browser"
chromejs10 15y ago
I couldn't live without my Google Reader. It's simple and basic which is what I want. I don't need a complex article viewer. I need to see the summary, bookmark some, and be able to view the full article. That's it.
wakemup 15y ago
Yes
kapauldo 15y ago
I use the mobile version on my laptop because it's so much easier to use (http://www.google.com/reader/i/ http://www.google.com/reader/i/). I also wrote a quick Javascript hack that makes the font bigger because for some reason the cries of the visually impaired fall on deaf ears at Google and Flipboard: javascript:(function(){ var newsize = '24px'; var divs = document.getElementsByTagName('div'); for(i=0;i<divs.length;i++) divs[i].style.fontSize=newsize; var divs = document.getElementsByTagName('a'); for(i=0;i<divs.length;i++) divs[i].style.fontSize=newsize; var divs = document.getElementsByClassName('item-snippet'); for(i=0;i<divs.length;i++) divs[i].style.fontSize=newsize; var divs = document.getElementsByClassName('text'); for(i=0;i<divs.length;i++) divs[i].style.fontSize=newsize; var divs = document.getElementsByClassName('item-title-collapsed'); for(i=0;i<divs.length;i++) divs[i].style.fontSize=newsize; var divs = document.getElementsByClassName('entry-contents-inner'); for(i=0;i<divs.length;i++) divs[i].style.fontSize=newsize; })()
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
alanh 15y ago
Huh? I have no idea how to answer. I "use" Reader but almost EXCLUSIVELY as a syncing service for my subscriptions, which I only read using dedicated, native RSS reader apps (Hello, Reeder [sic]!)

309 points by tnorthcutt 15y ago

Yes, and it really needs to be improved! It's been neglected for too long.

Thanks for creating: http://twitter.com/#!/cmaury/status/95607756299571200 http://twitter.com/#!/cmaury/status/95607756299571200

Ronkdar 15y ago

I use Reader on a nearly hourly basis. I suppose I should stop that...

smhinsey 15y ago

It's been basically my primary portal to the internet since it came out. Other than HN and reddit, which don't really produce super useful feeds, I don't really browse any sites directly anymore. I have always been looking for the next big thing to replace it, since there hasn't been a tremendous amount of effort put into it lately, but nothing has compared. The feature that I have been sort of daydreaming about is the ability to use your subscriptions to weight your search results so that sites you've subscribed to are ranked higher.

tbh 15y ago
You may prefer a modified reddit feed [1] where the article URL is the main RSS item URL, which makes the RSS feed much more useful. [1] http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?_id=bnYqwjiA3RGJxTckBR50VA&_render=rss http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?_id=bnYqwjiA3RGJxTckBR...
- smhinsey 15y ago
  Thanks, that does look useful. It might be a good way to follow some low traffic subreddits without subscribing to them. My main beef, however, is less with the content of the feed per se and more with the fact that they are in a fixed order, so you lose the curation aspect of voting.
chrmaury 15y ago
That would be a very interesting feature. My Reader search results are by far more useful than google.com results. I'm also waiting for post to G+ from reader. Read Later would also be very useful.
- smhinsey 15y ago
  Yeah, I'd settle for a high quality search within reader itself, realizing that integration into the main search might be impossible. I find it really confusing that the "Share" link in Reader still goes to Buzz, which is sort of associated with my G+ profile but not quite, in that it doesn't seem that people who are in my circles are necessarily able to see them.
- PierreTouzet 15y ago
  The Instapaper bookmarklet works great in Google Reader :)
cpeterso 15y ago
"Hacker news Overload" has HN RSS feeds for posts rated >= 20, 50, 100, or 150: http://talkfast.org/2010/07/23/a-cure-for-hacker-news-overload http://talkfast.org/2010/07/23/a-cure-for-hacker-news-overlo...
- smhinsey 15y ago
  Hm, thanks, I'll check that out. I'll probably still hit the site directly, but it'd be nice to have that archive in my account.
sraquo 15y ago
Shameless plug for more useful HN feeds: http://hnapp.com http://hnapp.com - filter posts by points, keywords, etc. and subscribe to the results by RSS.
- karussell 15y ago
  Hey, then I can also put a link for http://jetsli.de http://jetsli.de here ;) The next version will contain the possibility to include any rss feed and rank them to your personal needs. At the moment the first ten of your searches are used to boost articles if your are logged in.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]

brg 15y ago

Why? Is this market research for a new reader, or is this tool next on the Google chopping block and your looking for demographics.

chrmaury 15y ago
I was just curious. I'm addicted, and I wanted to see if other people felt the same way. When they dropped Reader from the global nav. I was very upset, but was glad to see there was enough of a ruckus to get it put back. I don't know that I would pay to keep Google from axing it, but I would consider it, and thats saying something.
- realgt 15y ago
  i would definitely pay to manage my rss feeds via its UI or at least through an API

wslh 15y ago

Yes, one of the main advantages is having all the historical posts there, since RSS is used only for latest posts. Another feature is automatic translation, I follow a blog from Ukraine there.

abraham 15y ago
In my experience Reader doesn't store all historic posts. Posts older then a month or two start disappearing.
- carterschonwald 15y ago
  What is an example you have? It seems that it has historic posts as long as anyone else every has followed the feed via Reader previously. Likewise, it won't display old posts in the list, but will dynamically load them as you "try" to scroll down. Perhaps one of these is what would happen for you?
  - abraham 15y ago
    There isn't a specific example feed. It used to happen for all unread posts. I don't know if it still happens or not as I don't leave enough posts unread anymore. The exact behavior was with several hundred unread posts in Reader with the oldest unread being 2-3 months old the oldest posts would slowly disappear. I know it was happening because they would be posts I wanted to read but didn't have time to so I would notice when they disappeared. It is possible they were still in Reader in a read state but I never bothered to check.
    - carterschonwald 15y ago
      this is actually (apparently) a intentional behavior, old posts that you never personally marked unread will after a month or several be marked read. I only recently discovered this myself, and yes it is an intentional behavior. (how else would you be able to handle reading all the newer articles? :p)

abeisgreat 15y ago

I pretty much leave reader open my whole work day and jump over to it whenever I get some down time.

parweb 15y ago

yes

lftl 15y ago

I generally use Feedly (http://www.feedly.com/home#my http://www.feedly.com/home#my) now, mostly because their Android client is much faster, at least for the way I read. They sync subs, and status with Reader so you can bounce back and forth. Their web client really isn't any better than Google Reader's but it's somewhat habitual now to go there instead of Google Reader.

gorm 15y ago
I really don't like their android client too much and prefer the native google reader client on android. Btw. here is a small tips with Feedly that I enjoy (for Firefox): You can also install this plugin: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/new-tab-homepage/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/new-tab-homep... Then you set feedly as your default tab open page. I see it everythere I do a Ctrl-T and because I quick-peek it many times a day, I can keep up with a large number of feeds.
- jahmed 15y ago
  I've abandoned the native app and just use the web version of reader bookmarked onto my home screen. Its works great and saves precious space on my Nexus One.
Sephr 15y ago
If you're looking for a good Android client for Google Reader, I'd recommend Reader HD (https://market.android.com/details?id=com.ageofmobile.reader https://market.android.com/details?id=com.ageofmobile.reader), which is vastly superior to the official app.

swah 15y ago

Missing option: Yes, but would use something better.

estel 15y ago
Given the subjectivity of "better", who wouldn't?
- swah 15y ago
  Exactly. But I mean, some folks might be 99% happy with it, I'm 60%.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

tshtf 15y ago

I ssh into my server and run Newsbeuter (http://newsbeuter.org/ http://newsbeuter.org/). I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a console based RSS reader.

mstjern 15y ago

Yes

bentruyman 15y ago

I've been using Fever for (what I think is) a few years now and haven't looked back: http://feedafever.com/ http://feedafever.com/

warp 15y ago
Do you use the Hot / Sparks feature at all? I also use fever, but that particular aspect of it doesn't seem to work for me -- so I just use it as a regular rss reader.
- fendmark 15y ago
  I am also a big fan of Fever. I actually use the Sparks feature a lot. It has completely changed how I use RSS, from attempting to read all my feeds to just reading what is "hot." The key is finding RSS feeds of sites that are link aggregators on topics of interest to you. The Hacker News RSS feed is actually a classic example of a great site to add as a spark in Fever.

jbui 15y ago

Yes, although I rarely ever use their web interface to view the feeds. (I use reeder, if your curious)

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

ugh 15y ago

Do you mean Reader as a service or Reader as a web app? I use Reader clients across all my devices daily, I wouldn’t be caught dead using the Reader web app daily. It’s horrific. (I will use it if I happen to be in front of a device where I cannot install anything and only have access to a web browser.) The service is great, the web app is not.

shinratdr 15y ago
> I will use it if I happen to be in front of a device where I cannot install anything and only have access to a web browser. Really? Usually in situations like that I either pull out my phone and use Reeder for iOS or visit the websites directly. Google Reeder's web client might as well not exist, it's just so bad. I'm actually kind of surprised there isn't a Google Reader web app replacement that is popular or well known. I would be interested in a "Reeder in the browser" solution like that occasionally.

anigbrowl 15y ago

Yes, but I find it very frustrating in some respects. It essentially performs a similar function to Gmail, but using an interface that feels 5 years out of date. I really hope that G+ is the beginning of a more integrated approach to input stream classification and management. It drives me nuts that Reader doesn't provide any method for construction of tagging rules, trackback analysis, or filtering.

jinushaun 15y ago

As far as I'm concerned, Google Reader is the internet. I rarely interact with websites directly.

jbk 15y ago

I use Tiny Tiny RSS (http://tt-rss.org/ http://tt-rss.org/). Open source, with a correct mobile web version and an Android application.

p4bl0 15y ago
Ah! I have to try that! I a heavy Google Reader user but I would prefer something installed on my server that I can completely control. I tried a few ones but none were even close to Google Reader in term of usability, but I never tried Tiny Tiny RSS. Thanks for the link :-).

bernardcornet 15y ago

losvedir 15y ago

Yes, but basically only on my phone.

rjd 15y ago

You are missing the option "Yes, but via a third party client" As I normally use net newswire and reeder, both tying into google reader, but I hate the web site interface.

Dysiode 15y ago

I tried Reader but it's not in my face enough to remember it, instead I use Opera's built-in RSS reader which has notifications (I imagine Chrome + Reader could have notifications like Gmail Chat).

riceadam 15y ago

No, but I use Reeder.

YooLi 15y ago
Ditto. I used Google Reader until I found Reeder for Mac and iOS. Reeder syncs with Google Reader so technically I do still use it, just not the web interface.
YooLi 15y ago
Ditto. I used Google Reader until I found Reeder for Mac and iOS. Reeder syncs with Google Reader so technically I do still use it, just not the web interface.

siddhant 15y ago

I use NetNewsWire (http://netnewswireapp.com/ http://netnewswireapp.com/). I usually open up a lot of tabs in my browser, so I try and move things away from it as much as I can. Plus, native apps look better than web apps, at least for now (and at least on Macs).

forkrulassail 15y ago

A bit of an addict, frankly. Trying to avert the damage with instapaper and my Kindle.

ajpatel 15y ago

I used to use Reader religiously...then I finally spent the time to find all those sites' Twitter feeds and shifted everything over to Twitter...it took forever but it's infinitely easier to share things now.

panacea 15y ago

Does via a widget on iGoogle count?

davidwparker 15y ago
I'm in the same boat. I use Google Reader, but pretty much (99%) of the time via iGoogle.

zmanian 15y ago

yes

mhd 15y ago

Yes, and one of my few wishes for chrome would be something like Firefox' (hidden) "open new windows as background tabs" preference, then using the 'v' key would become an order of magnitude more productive. That's my usual response for TL;DR blog posts. Browse through the whole list with your vi-keys, pick the ones that don't fit (or lose too much essential formatting) for other tabs, skim through the rest within the reader. As opposed to gmail, I could probably switch to something else if it had a half-way decent mobile version. Reeder isn't that essential to me.

abrowne 15y ago
Try the Chrome extension "Google Reader Open entry in background tab": https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lcimnckjiicikfpppcgnjhiflibbnbel https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lcimnckjiicikfpppc...
- mhd 15y ago
  Thanks, much appreciated.

adyus 15y ago

Another option I find myself using more and more often is Newsblur.

Adaptive 15y ago

Reader is also great for managing podcasts via "Listen" (Google's Android Podcast app). Nice because they show up with the rest of my RSS feeds.

orofino 15y ago
This actually annoys me, if I mark a new podcast read in reader it never downloads and queues on the phone if it hasn't already polled and seen the new item. I end up marking them unread over and over until I check to see if my phone has actually downloaded them.
- Adaptive 15y ago
  I use the Android interface most of the time and only occasionally use embedded player via reader. I do subscribe and manage my subscriptions a lot via the reader interface, however. I am not surprised if you've had trouble with the Listen app, however. It's really languished. Podcasts seem to me one of the still killer content features of our smart phones, yet we're still waiting for a rev on this app. For a while I was reading that the dev team behind it was focusing on the next gen "Listen and Watch" app, but who knows where that is. Love android, but some core apps are really half finished.

tomislaw 15y ago

wccrawford 15y ago

Yes. I found this post with it.

neilbowers 15y ago

Yes, but via Reeder. I gave up on using Google Reader directly.

shinratdr 15y ago

Does that include Google Reader clients? I have used the web interface maybe twice in two years, but I use Reeder on my phone & Mac every day.

there 15y ago

i used bloglines for a long time until they started having problems with feeds not consistently updating. i was comfortable with their interface, so i just duplicated it (http://den.im/ http://den.im/ - http://i.imgur.com/0e8jc.png http://i.imgur.com/0e8jc.png) and created all of the code underneath to fetch feeds. i added twitter oauth support so that twitter streams look and update just like rss feeds (but with posting/replying support). i added voting so that there could be a frontpage full of popular stories, and a mobile version that looks decent on android/iphone. but by then google reader had taken off and my few beta users had switched to that, so now i'm the only one still using it and the voting is useless. i'd probably just abandon it for something else but i haven't seen anything that integrates rss feeds, twitter, package tracking, and has a decent mobile interface. so for now it just remains a side project.

sygeek 15y ago
I would love to try out den.im. I will appreciate if you share an invitation with me. (email address is in profile details)
- there 15y ago
  sent.
zephyrfalcon 15y ago
It seems Bloglines is back, sort of... I'm trying it out as we speak. For some reason I really dislike Google Reader's user interface. :-/

btcoal 15y ago

Yep.

thom 15y ago

I store my blogroll on Google Reader, and sync it to NetNewsWire on my Mac and Reeder on iOS. It often makes me wish Twitter tracked read/unread information across devices. Never use the web interface though.

whatgoodisaroad 15y ago

Yes. I have it open 100% of the time.

quintinsykes 15y ago

Just gave up Reader after using for a couple of years. I found I could get the same benefit following the same people/blogs/publications in Twitter and using Instapaper for stuff I wanted to read later. For me, it's one less thing to keep up with.

aurynn 15y ago

Yes, but I'm in the process of moving off google-hosted things, so I'll need to figure out a new topology for this...

aorshan 15y ago

I just use rockmelt as my browser and have all the news websites I care about on my edge. That way its all there when I want to see it and can see whenever anything is updated.

ahmetalpbalkan 15y ago

I use Reeder for Mac, which is an app for Google Reader. it uses Google Reader, but I don't use its web interface.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

mikebracco 15y ago

Going to actual websites to consume news is like taking the subway to work instead of a private limo. Who wants to sift through 55 share buttons to find the content.

_delirium 15y ago

Currently not too often. I go back and forth on RSS overall, and am sort of undecided. Pro, versus normal webbrowsing: I don't end up doing the nervous-tic "reload to see if there's anything new on site A, then site B, then site C..." procrastination dance. Cons, versus normal webbrowsing: 1) Everything gets put into a standardized layout, while I like the different kinds of design around the web, some of which aren't just aesthetic but include different paradigms (magazine-type versus forum-type versus link-sharing-type site layouts); 2) I end up feeling like I have this constant backlog of stuff to read, as if it were another email inbox, while it's easier to ignore old content when loading up a website. My compromise is that for now I have only 4 blogs in my RSS feed, which update infrequently--- some of them not even more often than one post every 1-2 months. I have them there because they update infrequently enough that I'd forget to check, but I do want to see new posts when they arrive. Other sites I either check regularly in a browser, or I read whenever someone shares an interesting link to them, or whenever I remember, depending on the site.

tlrobinson 15y ago

I used to go through cycles reading RSS feeds and declaring RSS bankruptcy, but I've given up. I need a priority queue RSS reader. Show me the N most "important" posts across all my feeds since I last visited. Importance would be calculated a number of ways: * Prioritize posts from low volume feeds. I probably want to see every post from a friend who blogs once a month, but not every post from Engadget. * Most favorited/liked/whatever, especially among my friends. * Similar posts to things I've favorited/liked/whatever in the past. * Manually tagging certain feeds as important. Also, I have this problem other "streams" of information, like Twitter, and email (Gmail's Priority Inbox is a good start). Some people I follow post a lot of useless stuff, but I still follow them because they're friends or sometimes say interesting things. Is there anything remotely like this out there?

RossP 15y ago
Shaun Inman's Fever[1] tries to do some of this. Items that are linked to from multiple feeds float to the top of your reading list. You can also add "sparks", which you will never get to see the contents of however they will be used to help figure out which other items to float up to the top of your list. Self-hosted, PHP, $30. Works on Desktop and has an iPhone skin as well. [1] http://feedafever.com/ http://feedafever.com/
qcassidy 15y ago
Google Reader's "sort by magic" (under "View settings") might work for you: """ A third option, Sort by magic will rank items by "magic." Personalized magic ranking is automatically generated, taking into account your past reading behavior (including liking and starring) and global signals. We'll do our best to display items in the most relevant and interesting order -- click the Like button on things you think are important or enjoy reading, and we'll learn to put items like that first. """ http://www.google.com/support/reader/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=69980 http://www.google.com/support/reader/bin/answer.py?hl=en&#38...
- tlrobinson 15y ago
  Looks promising, I'll try it. Ideally it would hide all but the top 10 or 50 or 100 posts, and if I finish reading those I could see more. Opening up an RSS reader and seeing hundreds or thousands of unread posts is discouraging.

joelhaus 15y ago

HackerNews is easy to include in your Google Reader Send to menu (just like the bookmarklets functionality). Go to settings: http://www.google.com/reader/settings?display=edit-extras http://www.google.com/reader/settings?display=edit-extras, click the "Send to" tab, click "Create a custom link" and add these strings: Name ~ HackerNews URL ~ http://news.ycombinator.com/submitlink?u=${url}&t=${title} Icon URL ~ http://ycombinator.com/images/y18.gif

jaxn 15y ago

I use NetNewsWire every morning on my iPad. However, it is pulling from Google Reader. My feed reading has changed drastically though. I used to subscribe to over 200 feeds, now I try to keep it under 20 (and not every feed has updates every day).

barik 15y ago

I actually use a version of FeedDemon (http://www.feeddemon.com/ http://www.feeddemon.com/) which is essentially a desktop application that can integrate with Google Reader. So technically, the answer is between "Yes", and "No, but I do use another RSS reader on a daily basis".

jonmulholland 15y ago

Not anymore, Twitter lists + Flipboard have totally replaced Google Reader for me.

conesus 15y ago

I used to use Google Reader, but I found that I missed seeing the original site and that I couldn't easily filter out stories I didn't want to read. So I built NewsBlur -- http://www.newsblur.com http://www.newsblur.com. It's open-source and I'd love if more folks followed my development: http://github.com/samuelclay http://github.com/samuelclay. It's been a weekend project but it's been a wild ride so far. One of my main goals is to have much of the functionality of Google Reader, most of which has slowly made its way into NewsBlur. I'm currently working on a free iOS app for NewsBlur. I also put out an API so that others could also make their own feed reader. But really, I missed seeing the original site more than anything. It looks like a security hole, but NewsBlur actually just proxies the site and displays it back to the user. And the intelligence slider keeps me sane, since I slide it towards green and my unread count comes down to a manageable level.

gst 15y ago
Wow... One of the few websites for which I immediately bought a premium account.
micampe 15y ago
Hey, not my thing but the way you detect the current post and synchronize the list and content is really slick. Also, no offense, but you should ask some designer friend to polish the UI because this looks very good already and it can be even better.
- conesus 15y ago
  I'm a hacker, what can I say? The design I think makes a lot of intuitive sense. The visual layout leaves a little something to be desired. But then again, that's how you know NewsBlur is legit and not some fly-by-night.
  - micampe 15y ago
    Yes, I was talking mostly about visuals. But again, very good job.
15y ago

dfischer 15y ago

I stopped using RSS a year ago. Too much shit. I filter what's important through my Twitter followers now.

dfischer 15y ago
Didn't mean to offend anyone with "shit" - I really meant "too much information to sift through."

whalesalad 15y ago

I gave up on RSS... I get most of my news through Twitter and HN actually.

arjn 15y ago

I use google reader on my Transformer tablet (Android). While it's not perfect, its reasonably usable and works well.

knewter 15y ago

Yes, multiple times a day.

charlax 15y ago

Yes, I read (or skim through) about 200 articles a day (it takes me 30'). I refine my list on a monthly basis and make sure only relevant RSS feed are listed to make sure I am not overwhelmed.

tednaleid 15y ago

I leverage Google Reader, but never go to the website. It stores my subscriptions and current read state. A variety of clients synchronize the latest results. NetNewsWire on the desktop, Reeder on the iPad and NewsRob on my NexusOne Android phone. Not sure which one this falls under, but I picked "No, but I do use another RSS reader on a daily basis".

encoderer 15y ago

I changed an ex-girlfriends life with Reader -- I swear to god. She's a (semi) extreme couponer and deal hunter. Every day there's dozens of give-away's. Good, expensive stuff. Be the first 100 to click on this link, or the first 25 to take that survey, etc. She followed a dozen+ blogs every day to stay current on these things. When I set her up in Reader and she discovered the "Next Item" button, it changed her life. It was really pretty great to be able to help her like that and see her eyes light up.

chrmaury 15y ago
Thats how I felt when I discovered Reader. I went from browsing like 8 websites to 80, in the same amount of time. Reader made me more intelligent.

rahilsondhi 15y ago

I used to check it daily, but now I've stopped because of information overload. The most important news finds its way to me (eg through Facebook or Twitter shares), otherwise, I'm much more productive just getting some work done.

ssp 15y ago

I switched to http://fastladder.com/ http://fastladder.com/ after bloglines became unusable.

dunhamda 15y ago

I use Google Reader daily, but I probably would not have participated in this poll if I didn't.

alain94040 15y ago

Warning: this poll is useless due to high selection bias. Why? Most people who don't use Google Reader will not bother to click on the link to the poll. I don't see how to correct for such a huge bias.

chrmaury 15y ago

I see Reader is my main consumption service, and I see G+ as my potential broadcasting service. That being the case I would like to see more integration. like = +1 Share= Share on G+ Share w/ comment = Share with comment on G+ Are there any other features? related to G+ or otherwise?

zapjp 15y ago

yes

hbzhang 15y ago

I do not use Google reader. I just tech news droid app. It is good enough! GR seems an old concept already.

TodWait 15y ago

I use it, but get a sense fewer people are using it than a few years ago. Most people I know get their interesting links by connecting and following smart folks on Twitter and feeding their links to PostRank.

rednaught 15y ago

I've been using Feedlooks (http://www.feedlooks.com/ http://www.feedlooks.com/) which also a Twitter client built in. It also takes care of the "mark as read" problem when subscribed to a large number of feeds.

barista 15y ago

my yahoo is my reader of choice.

adsrikanth 15y ago

I used to and now, it seems to be a time killer so, I removed my feeds. It's a great resource for filtering jobs from sites like craigslist.

lionhearted 15y ago

There's no voting field for "I use it sporadically," or that's what I'd have voted. I check HN first, my favorite blogs directly second, and the current forums I'm reading third. If I have more time to burn (rarely), I sign in to Reader. I liberally built up my RSS feed with lots of things, so it's great for skimming, but the signal:noise ratio isn't all that great. Hence, my fourth choice for getting some information/entertainment.

simcop2387 15y ago

I use google reader as an aggregator for my feeds and pull them in with Liferea to actually read them. It makes it really nice to use since it keeps all of the readers in sync between machines.

Duff 15y ago

I love Reader. It amazes me that Google keeps creating these new "social" features, where they have a great social thing going already. I share stuff and discuss things with my colleagues on Reader. Somehow, they launched Google+ without any integration!

frossie 15y ago
This. If Google went poof tomorrow, the lack of Reader would be the one thing that would leave me bereft. On the iPhone, I use mobileRSS as the UI, but I use the web app directly on the desktop. I assume the OP question was to establish whether one would use something else, and Plus integration would definitely affect my answer. If there was a tight integration (like, share to a particular circle) I would be less tempted to jump ship, but I have to say I am more wedded to Reader that any other Google product simply because by searching the "Shared" section I can find almost every single thing I have found interesting on the web [I share to one person only, either directly from the RSS feed or to Reader using Shareaholic].

jdietrich 15y ago

No, it's a skinner box [1]. The mere existence of a URL with a limitless amount of relevant, interesting content is toxic to my productivity. Even if I have it blacklisted, the temptation plays on my mind, my dopamine receptors dancing at the prospect of a slot machine that dispenses pure novelty. I use a cron job to e-mail me a daily digest of the RSS feeds I can't do without, which decouples cause from effect - I know what time I'll get my daily fix, so I feel no urge to ^r^r^r. I also have HN on maxvisit:20, minaway:300 and have blocked Reddit, BoingBoing and other skinner boxes on a router which I can't control. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber

athst 15y ago

I have never been able to get RSS to work for me - I'd always subscribe to a bunch of feeds, then they'd pile up into hundreds of unread posts, and then I'd just go numb to it and end up visiting the site itself like I did before. But now, Twitter has filled this hole for me - most every site or writer of significance has a Twitter feed, and it's easy to follow them. I don't feel obligated to read down this huge stack of accumulated posts, so there aren't any mental barriers to use it. In addition, you read the content on the site itself, in the format that it was meant for (or you add it to Instapaper). Twitter is sorta like RSS for normal humans.

kayoone 15y ago
Exactly. With RSS i never got into the habit of checking it consistently because there was just too much stuff i did not care about so quickly i dismissed it. With twitter i follow great people from all the areas i am interested in and they usually have very interesting stuff to say and share. So if something is interesting i will just email it to me. I have tried Instapaper to save interesting stuff for later reads but then i have the same problem of not checking it again after some time because i dont have much time to check it and the stuff piles up. With emails i need to get my inbox clean and will check the article and then eventually save it to Instapaper if its long or worth a reread.

dym 15y ago

The missing option is: "Yes, and I wrote code for it" :) BTW have you tried to enter the Konami code into Reader?

jokermatt999 15y ago
Do you still work on it, or have you just worked on it in the past?

realgt 15y ago

i loved Google Reader until i started using feedly which is how reader _should_ have been implemented. i've been cycling through 15K+ items per month on reader for several years now and don't ever see myself not using rss for content discovery

gmartres 15y ago

Wow, that's unexpected. I'd have thought the HN crowd would be keen not to depend on Google for too many services. Especially when there's a lot of open source alternatives and when it appears that Reader does not even support something as basic and important as offline reading: https://www.google.com/support/forum/p/reader/thread?tid=5fc63079a1c035b3&hl=en https://www.google.com/support/forum/p/reader/thread?tid=5fc... Personally I use Akregator(http://userbase.kde.org/Akregator/fr http://userbase.kde.org/Akregator/fr) What's so great about Reader?

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

st3fan 15y ago

Yes, but indirectly. I use the awesome Reeder app for iOS and OS X. Which grabs stuff from my Google Reader account.

tvaughan 15y ago

Yes, but via Feedly.

gkanai 15y ago

Yes

skilesare 15y ago

Where is the option for 'hourly'?

horza 15y ago

No, I use Mixtab for Mac, it's available on the Mac App Store.

mikeklaas 15y ago

No, because RSS readers are still stuck in the mindset of email clients. Unread counts. Keep track of read state for everything. It's better than nothing, but not much, especially for non-techies. A better answer would be something like HN: isn't limited to certain sources, the best content floats to the top, and is in tune with the idiosyncrasies that set you apart from mainstream nonsense. [1] [1] Oh look, I built just that http://zite.com http://zite.com :)

borland 15y ago

Where's the "Yes, but I never actually use the interface, only third party apps like Reeder on iOS" ?

imagetic 15y ago

No / Yes. I use Reeder daily on the Mac and iPad. I can't stand going to Reader, the UI sucked so bad for so long. Reederapp was a huuuuge win.

mikecsh 15y ago

I use it indirectly to sync NetNewsWire on my Mac, iPhone and iPad. I don't use the app itself though.

flarg 15y ago

Yes

therationalme 15y ago

Yes... although I should probably moderate my rss habits with a little more discipline

SonicSoul 15y ago

yes, and also Reeder for OSX and iOS. keeps all devices in sync. i wish i found a similar setup for podcasts. i've been trying to use itunes but that is a disaster when you use multiple computers.

klochner 15y ago

So google has more than 90% RSS reader market share? That seems surprisingly high to me.

a3_nm 15y ago
Hackernews is a biaised sample.

zobzu 15y ago

I use Firefox live bookmarks. I tried many feed readers but I never find them as convenient. I must be broken.

elmindreda 15y ago

Every morning starts with coffee and Liferea.

mcherm 15y ago

"Everyone says" blogs are dead. Maybe they've been replaced by Twitter. But for me, reading blogs is essential: I learn a great deal from them. Many reputable news sources also have RSS feeds. I read from several different locations so I need a web-based tool to be able to keep track of what I have read. I'd be happy to use another tool, but the only decent one I know of is Google Reader.

lilc 15y ago

I didn't use it much until I found you could interact with it via an API. This is what got me using it: http://cpansearch.perl.org/src/GRAY/WebService-Google-Reader-0.19/ex/ http://cpansearch.perl.org/src/GRAY/WebService-Google-Reader...

sinamt 15y ago

If you're a Google Reader user you may want to checkout this Chrome extension I built that enables full content feeds. It adds readable content or iframing of feed entries. Settings are per feed or folder and are transparently built into Google Reader. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/khbjahpecnkenngkidhioicnfpakihgo https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/khbjahpecnkenngkid...

ggarron 15y ago

I use it to have synced my Reeder app, both on my iPod and on my Mac, great app, hardly recommend to anyone.

krhebbar 15y ago

Yes

virtualpain 15y ago

No, but I do use Reader at least weekly. I use RSS reader to avoid blog's annoying advertisement (although some blogs has ads in their RSS but that less annoy) and heavy load theme (yes my internet connection suck)

rman666 15y ago

Yes, many times per day.

ghanashyam 15y ago

once a week.. as feeds increase I want to spend more time on it

moonlighter 15y ago

I'm using NewsRack (which sync's with Google Reader), so implicitly I'm using Google Reader (just not it's web UI).

ftwinnovations 15y ago

Yes

gphilip 15y ago

Yes

LordBodak 15y ago

I love Google Reader! For Android users, I highly recommend D7 Reader - https://sites.google.com/site/d7reader/ https://sites.google.com/site/d7reader/ It's quite a bit better than the official app.

Sindisil 15y ago

The one feature gReader is missing, which may drive me to an alternative, is the ability to chose a set of items to mark as read. I can "mark all as read", of course, but I'd like to be able to eliminate items I can tell from the title are not of immediate interest.

budman 15y ago

I have been an everyday RSS user for a few years now. Jumped around trying Bloglines, a few desktop clients, Google Reader, some unknown smaller sites, etc over that time. Finally I found my perfect aggregator and have been using it daily for about 8 months now. I even took it upon myself to donate a few bucks to developer. Simple, free and open source: http://rsslounge.aditu.de/ http://rsslounge.aditu.de/ Only catch is it requires your own host/webserver with PHP/SQL and a quick installation. But well worth it for me as I just dropped it onto one of my websites.

pknerd 15y ago

yuval 15y ago

yes

ilovekhym 15y ago

Yes

thirdsun 15y ago

If Reeder for iPad is considered as using Google Reader, then yes, daily. This is without a doubt my most used iPad app and very essential for my daily routine.

Fuzzwah 15y ago

I self host a copy of rnews http://rnews.sourceforge.net/ http://rnews.sourceforge.net/ which I've hacked up to do a heap of extra things, such as tweet links which I click on (I use this as a simple history system). I was never a fan of the g.reader layout and toyed with a boxed layout on an igoogle page similar to what I have set up in my rnews system but it felt clunky.

Fuzzwah 15y ago
Also, while we're talking rss.... yahoo pipes is brilliant. I use it to mash up a whole stack of feeds and convert pages which don't have rss into rss. http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/ http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/ Anyone who uses rss and hasn't messed with pipes is missing out on a whole heap of awesome.

brevityness 15y ago

My heart is with Reeder for Mac - http://reederapp.com/mac/ http://reederapp.com/mac/

fredley 15y ago

Yes, online as well as Android app.

beefman 15y ago

"Since April 18, 2007 you have read a total of 118,679 items."

siri 15y ago

I use reader more than my gmail... sad to see no UI or feature development on reader since longtime..

SkyRocknRoll 15y ago

Yes

jcasman 15y ago

These days it's daily but that comes and goes. It's like any kind of reading, way overloaded which means periodically I consciously give up or... just never get around to it. The Mark All As Read is a key function for me, so I can start fresh.

kleim 15y ago

No, I prefer 'river of news' style aggregators like Zencancan.

quattrofan 15y ago

Love it, but it really needs a link into Google+ asap

NARKOZ 15y ago

no, I use reeder.app

iphoneedbot 15y ago

You guys will think im crazy.. but I use wordpress, feed aggregator, and embedly.

NathanC 15y ago

I use http://fmeme.com/ http://fmeme.com/ and get endless content curated by category

rhizome31 15y ago

I use Netvibes. Good to see other interesting news readers suggested here. I'll give them a try. I avoid using Google products as much as I can. I still have a Gmail address that some people use, but it forwards to another address. I should probably set up an auto-reply to tell people to stop using it. I still have a site on App Engine that I need to migrate (will give me a good excuse to try Flask or Brubeck :-) The only Google product that I think I'm going to keep using is Youtube, because it has content I can't watch elsewhere.

orionlogic 15y ago

Yes. Google Reader is my bookmark manager in cloud.

Concours 15y ago

I use http://www.nerdzine.com http://www.nerdzine.com on a daily basis for my rss news.

navpan 15y ago

No, but I use it on a weekly basis

defmoves 15y ago

Yes, Mostly mobile reader while commuting.

robgough 15y ago

Switched from Bloglines many moons ago, and never looked back... I use Reeder on my iPad, Helvetireader2 as a browser script and don't ever really use it on my phone, but when I do I'd use the mobile site.

hgarg2011 15y ago

Yes, on Mac and Android phone. I do use other RSS Readers which in turn connect to Google Reader,

aab1d 15y ago

No, not really.

anuj 15y ago

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sage/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sage/

coley 15y ago

Yes, via @feedly

2nd_planet 15y ago

I use it maybe monthly; but not daily.

erikb 15y ago

I'm an IT student in Germany and must say that there is basically nobody here who uses RSS readers at all. The only reason for RSS in Germany seems to be that tools can also read it (like mobile apps for facebook and co.)

mattmanic 15y ago

Yes, use it every day on my Mac, and use Reeder on my iOS devices.

Airballman 15y ago

YES.

spindritf 15y ago

I use Liferea, it came with the system. Tried Google Reader once but its import feature messed up the order the feeds were in and treated hierarchic folders as a flat tag space which, after years of being accustomed to my feeds in a certain way and next to one another, killed my enthusiasm for it.

perl 15y ago

Yes I do use google reader

gtzi 15y ago

No, Twitter has over time replaced Google Reader for me. I don't know how to feel about it.

CedriK 15y ago

Yes but may look for another reader. Because they don't add some new features.

urlwolf 15y ago

I use the opera feed reader, it's fantastic. Much faster than greader to move around, works offline.

robjohnson 15y ago

Each and every day.

pauljonas 15y ago

Love Google Reader, have ~2,500 subscriptions, it is the only RSS reader that could handle such volume -- NetNewsWire make my Mac sputter and smoke with only ~300 feeds or so. Many might be aghast at the humungous subscription set, but I do not do RSS like email -- it is more akin to a stream I surf, skim and dip. And it is lightning fast, permitting me to breeze through content in a rapid pace. That said, I am astonished at how Google has allowed it to languish and stagnate, or by adding incomplete and inconsequential features. * One of the big reasons I made the switch was the ability to search feeds, but sadly, of late, it looks like "search" (which I thought was the bread and butter Google raison d'être) functionality has deteriorated, not as robust or comprehensive as even a year ago or few months ago. * No public API. * Control to let me jump in at a given time point in the stream. Sometimes due to just mistakenly hitting a hotkey that refreshes and resets when I'm in the middle of a stream. Or it might be that I just want to jump to feeds earlier than 8 hours ago, 3 days ago, or 3 months ago.

radonc 15y ago

Best way is to use Google Reader with Post Rank plugin. They have one for Opera and Chrome but not for Firefox. It filters your stream based on how the article has interacted in real time; I think it is a measure of social metrics. Despite constant emailing, PostRank has not released an add on for Firefox and now they have been acquired by Google; I doubt whether Google would even care for the "other browser"

chromejs10 15y ago

I couldn't live without my Google Reader. It's simple and basic which is what I want. I don't need a complex article viewer. I need to see the summary, bookmark some, and be able to view the full article. That's it.

wakemup 15y ago

Yes

kapauldo 15y ago

I use the mobile version on my laptop because it's so much easier to use (http://www.google.com/reader/i/ http://www.google.com/reader/i/). I also wrote a quick Javascript hack that makes the font bigger because for some reason the cries of the visually impaired fall on deaf ears at Google and Flipboard: javascript:(function(){ var newsize = '24px'; var divs = document.getElementsByTagName('div'); for(i=0;i<divs.length;i++) divs[i].style.fontSize=newsize; var divs = document.getElementsByTagName('a'); for(i=0;i<divs.length;i++) divs[i].style.fontSize=newsize; var divs = document.getElementsByClassName('item-snippet'); for(i=0;i<divs.length;i++) divs[i].style.fontSize=newsize; var divs = document.getElementsByClassName('text'); for(i=0;i<divs.length;i++) divs[i].style.fontSize=newsize; var divs = document.getElementsByClassName('item-title-collapsed'); for(i=0;i<divs.length;i++) divs[i].style.fontSize=newsize; var divs = document.getElementsByClassName('entry-contents-inner'); for(i=0;i<divs.length;i++) divs[i].style.fontSize=newsize; })()

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

alanh 15y ago

Huh? I have no idea how to answer. I "use" Reader but almost EXCLUSIVELY as a syncing service for my subscriptions, which I only read using dedicated, native RSS reader apps (Hello, Reeder [sic]!)