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I literally stopped reading literature the same way after that. With GReader I used to consume the ToC of 15-30 journals without missing a single abstract. I ju

I literally stopped reading literature the same way after that. With GReader I used to consume the ToC of 15-30 journals without missing a single abstract. I just gave up on reading that way after that, no other tool came close.

dewey 4y ago
Which part of Google Reader was the one that no other tools came close to? There's almost as many good and different RSS reader clients as Todo list apps, so this somehow seems like seen through rose-tinted glasses.
- ramraj07 4y ago
  I gave the entire gamut a chance back then, none was the same. They either cost a lot, didn’t offer the same UX or both. The fact that we are celebrating its anniversary today shows how irreplaceable it was so not sure if I’m the one wearing rose tinted glasses or if it’s the other way around where folks can’t acknowledge the magic some products capture that’s not easy to put in words.
  - lopis 4y ago
    Google Reader had an "outdated" UI, in the sense that it was really bare-bones and feature-less, and focused on its main function. If it survived to today, it would probably have been redesigned 7 times like gmail and become increasingly complex and slow. So while you're not exactly wearing rose tinted glasses, you're yearning for a time when the web was simpler and gave birth to Google Reader.
- qbasic_forever 4y ago
  It had an information dense UI and was super fast and snappy to load. It was basically like Gmail--always there, dependable, easy to scan and quickly digest information. All of the competition at the time of its demise was complete and utter garbage (sorry Feedly, I loved ya but you were slow and super unstable in the early days). Nowadays there are some worthy alternatives but the damage is done and RSS is just getting more and more obscure and blogging outside closed platforms like Twitter is basically dead.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  Google Reader was a lot better than an RSS client. I went away on vacation once and left Thunderbird running to capture RSS feeds. When I came back, my computer had shut down. That didn't happen with Reader.
  - dewey 4y ago
    You are comparing a managed service running on a server to a locally running app on your computer that somehow malfunctioned? That's a very apples to oranges comparison. If you want to compare that you'd have to compare it to a service also running on a server like Feedly, Miniflux or any other managed service.
    - thaumasiotes 4y ago
      > You are comparing a managed service running on a server to a locally running app on your computer? No, that was you. Take a look at your comment: >>> Which part of Google Reader was the one that no other tools came close to? >>> There's almost as many good and different RSS reader clients as Todo list apps
      - dewey 4y ago
        RSS client apps can still connect to managed services, so not sure what you are talking about. In my case I'm using Reeder and it's just talking to the Miniflux server. So the server keeps all feeds refreshed all the time and the client app just fetches them from there. Just like Email being fetched from the server over IMAP.
tap-snap-or-nap 4y ago
I used to use it to avoid the internet ads and the clean interface. I stopped reading RSS after that too, I currently have NetNewsWire, but don't use it as much.

dewey 4y ago

Which part of Google Reader was the one that no other tools came close to? There's almost as many good and different RSS reader clients as Todo list apps, so this somehow seems like seen through rose-tinted glasses.

ramraj07 4y ago
I gave the entire gamut a chance back then, none was the same. They either cost a lot, didn’t offer the same UX or both. The fact that we are celebrating its anniversary today shows how irreplaceable it was so not sure if I’m the one wearing rose tinted glasses or if it’s the other way around where folks can’t acknowledge the magic some products capture that’s not easy to put in words.
- lopis 4y ago
  Google Reader had an "outdated" UI, in the sense that it was really bare-bones and feature-less, and focused on its main function. If it survived to today, it would probably have been redesigned 7 times like gmail and become increasingly complex and slow. So while you're not exactly wearing rose tinted glasses, you're yearning for a time when the web was simpler and gave birth to Google Reader.
qbasic_forever 4y ago
It had an information dense UI and was super fast and snappy to load. It was basically like Gmail--always there, dependable, easy to scan and quickly digest information. All of the competition at the time of its demise was complete and utter garbage (sorry Feedly, I loved ya but you were slow and super unstable in the early days). Nowadays there are some worthy alternatives but the damage is done and RSS is just getting more and more obscure and blogging outside closed platforms like Twitter is basically dead.
thaumasiotes 4y ago
Google Reader was a lot better than an RSS client. I went away on vacation once and left Thunderbird running to capture RSS feeds. When I came back, my computer had shut down. That didn't happen with Reader.
- dewey 4y ago
  You are comparing a managed service running on a server to a locally running app on your computer that somehow malfunctioned? That's a very apples to oranges comparison. If you want to compare that you'd have to compare it to a service also running on a server like Feedly, Miniflux or any other managed service.
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    > You are comparing a managed service running on a server to a locally running app on your computer? No, that was you. Take a look at your comment: >>> Which part of Google Reader was the one that no other tools came close to? >>> There's almost as many good and different RSS reader clients as Todo list apps
    - dewey 4y ago
      RSS client apps can still connect to managed services, so not sure what you are talking about. In my case I'm using Reeder and it's just talking to the Miniflux server. So the server keeps all feeds refreshed all the time and the client app just fetches them from there. Just like Email being fetched from the server over IMAP.

tap-snap-or-nap 4y ago

I used to use it to avoid the internet ads and the clean interface. I stopped reading RSS after that too, I currently have NetNewsWire, but don't use it as much.