8 ms·

Show HN: A Google Reader-inspired RSS reader

115 points by khet 4y ago

sp332 4y ago
I saw the title and thought "eh, I've seen RSS readers before". But darn if that isn't a comfortable interface to look at.
- imbnwa 4y ago
  Haven't seen well-though-out information density like this in a minute
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
gareve 4y ago
Hug of Death?
- khet 4y ago
  OP Here, I think so. Digging into why it's taking so long to load.
  - whoibrar 4y ago
    I got 501 Gateway, if that helps
wslh 4y ago
What had Google Reader that was amazing and no RSS existing today has is feed history: when you added a blog to Google Reader you could traverse the feed as if you added it from the beginning of the blog (intersection with the born of Google Reader). BTW, I wrote something along the topic above in an article from 2011 [1]. [1] Extraction of Main Text Content Using the Google Reader NoAPI: http://blog.databigbang.com/extraction-of-main-text-content/ http://blog.databigbang.com/extraction-of-main-text-content/
- qbasic_forever 4y ago
  I forgot that and you're totally right. It was awesome to scroll (and search!) through a feed's entire history. Ugh it makes me so mad Google got rid of all that for nothing.
- 1bent 4y ago
  At the time they shut down Listen, some podcasts (e.g. Car Talk) were closing their back episodes and charging money for them; I figured that's why Google decided to stop the service.
  - dirtyid 4y ago
    Did Listen not support password protected feeds? I remember a solid 2-3 years after Listen was killed (2012-2015) where Android had no passable podcast player.
- dirtyid 4y ago
  Pretty sure Feedly supports feed history, takes some time to pull archive onto their servers on obscure feeds though.
- voytec 4y ago
  > no RSS existing today Some sites are generating feeds with links to all articles, not just newest ones. But mostly smaller, personal blogs.
AlbertCory 4y ago
I'm living with Feedly. Reluctantly. I don't think it's very sticky and I'd happily switch to this thing (which is giving me 504 Gateway Time-out right now) if it's any better.
- petercooper 4y ago
  Have a quick look at Feedbin. I've been using it for a few years now and it's the most Reader-ish of the options I've found so far. Feedly is too algorithm-y for me.
- Arainach 4y ago
  What would make an RSS reader sticky? If all you want is an ordered list there aren't many features to keep you attached. I've been using Feedly since Reader shut down and it's been fine. Every time I want to add a new feed via URL I feel it's needlessly difficult and suspect they may have moved my cheese once again, but for reading the feeds I'm subscribed to it works great.
  - AlbertCory 4y ago
    > What would make an RSS reader sticky? Exactly: nothing. You can export your feeds and import them somewhere else. Ditto on adding new feeds. I can never remember how to do it, and if I do, it doesn't work anymore.
- CharlesW 4y ago
  > I'm living with Feedly. Reluctantly. FYI, there are a bunch of apps that sync with Feedly and that you can use as an alternate front end. NetNewsWire (Mac, iOS) is one example that's worth checking out, but there are many options that cover every OS.
- seba_dos1 4y ago
  I've been using a self-hosted CommaFeed instance for many many years now and it filled a Google Reader-shaped hole in my reading habits perfectly.
- dirtyid 4y ago
sys_64738 4y ago
When Google killed Reader I stopped trusting them at that point as I realized they'd kill everything to maintain control. I hate GOOG nowadays and hope they become less influential on the internet.
- matthewfcarlson 4y ago
  Granted, the audience here is a little skewed but I feel like the death of reader generated significant mistrust that I’m not sure google expected.
  - fiddlerwoaroof 4y ago
    Yeah, my impression at the time was that programmers and tech-related media turned against Google basically overnight when Reader was killed. I think the importance of Reader wasn’t “everybody used it” but “the people in a position to influence the public perception of Google used it”.
  - ukuuru 4y ago
    I believe it is about the audience, they are very casual about killing products. The users of the Reader was people with interest and influence in technology. Killing a product that is utilized by the people with the higher influence created no good.
russellbeattie 4y ago
I actually saw this submission via Inoreader. It's got everything I want and need in a news reader. Been using it for years now and there's little I'd change about it. Each person has their own preferences, of course, but I recommend it highly.
- Euphorbium 4y ago
  Google reader had to die, so the inoreader could thrive. It is so good.
- roldie 4y ago
  Another +1 for Inoreader. So many great features
  - stereoradonc 4y ago
    And yet another ++1 for Inoreader. I don't find the need to consider the "alternatives"
- snapplebobapple 4y ago
  I like inoreader too but i dont miss it after switching to freshrss. I was tired of paying them each year. The mobile browser is really good i frshrss, atleast when added to the desktop via bravr in android.
1bent 4y ago
When Google ditched Reader, they told me how to export my OPML, so I did, and vowed to never again depend on a cloud service for something I could do with a local client app. I've moved from one to another over the years. At the moment I'm using Feeder on Android. Likewise when they dropped Listen for podcasts, currently I'm on Antennapod. If I can get an app from f-droid, I prefer it. I can live with backing up my OPML files whenever I add a blog or podcast, and having no web server for desktop use or tracking read/unread progress; I just only consume from my primary phone.
- croutonwagon 4y ago
  I had a similar sentiment. I did briefly use feedly until they started messing with their login screens some time back. See, I had a local feedly login (with randomized password etc) but they Sussed out it was a google workspace enabled account/domain and would constantly try to redirect me to googles oath. I moved to miniflux and love it. Easy to manage and super lightweight. The only “feature” I wish it had was a “mark all items older than 1 day as read”. You can mark all as read. And you can inverse your sort date and expand how many articles are paginated to mark large swaths as read. But a simple button to do some cleaning if I hadn’t read feeds in a week (and likely wouldn’t care for week old content) would be great. Still is amazing overall and even that is a nitpick. In fact I donated a bit to the maintainer just this month.
  - flkiwi 4y ago
    miniflux is great. I'm hesitant to ask for more features to a lightweight, stable RSS service, but it would be super-nice to be able to enter a youtube username (for example) and have it build a feed from it, as Google is, at best, wildly inconsistent about providing youtube RSS feeds. Essentially baked-in rsshub functionality. But I'm fine running rsshub in parallel.
    - croutonwagon 4y ago
      > I'm hesitant to ask for more features to a lightweight, stable RSS service, Agree entirely. Which is why I never bothered to even ask the dev about my “nitpick”. I did try a few git repos that would do similar, but they were based on old builds of ruby and well, it didn’t go too well (and I’m not a Ruby on Rails person). That said I will just periodically purge all reads, and history, and refresh all feeds in background to keep it running smooth. It’s actually how I came to this very thread. Re: YouTube, have you tried putting in a channel URL? Miniflux is great at finding rss feeds from indirect urls. But I have noticed rss is increasingly being stripped from sites, probably in an attempt to drive actual traffic stats. I usually try to visit the external link for some sites to give them the traffic/hits. Nevertheless some of my favorite feeds like TalkingPoints Memo and The Drive have completely stripped RSS off their site, which is a shame.
orcul 4y ago
My favorite web based rss reader https://bazqux.com/ https://bazqux.com/
xpil 4y ago
I was a heavy Google Reader user. When it disappeared, I switched to NewsBlur. NewsBlur is great but it lacks one particular feature: an RSS feed for a folder of blogs. (or a category of blogs, potato - potahto) So I switched to self-hosted FreshRSS. It has all the features I want (plus, unlike NewsBlur, it's free) but it is Docker-based and I am already like 10 versions behind and I am too lazy/scared to learn how to upgrade it without destroying the Universe. BoredReading has a fantastic UI and I absolutely love the approach and organization of feeds. Key shortcuts are cool, too. If there is ever a self-hosted version that I can feed with my own stuff from scratch (ideally via an OPML file), I'd go for it immediately.
- arepublicadoceu 4y ago
  > but it is Docker-based and I am already like 10 versions behind and I am too lazy/scared to learn how to upgrade it without destroying the Universe. You should be scared, the other day I messed a completely functioning miniflux docker by upgrading it. It's been so long since I set it all up that I lost the incantation necessary for the setup or the will to look it up, just went ahead and I'm using newsblur again. Sigh. I'm getting old and loosing the will/patience to selfhost.
  - thunderbong 4y ago
    I've faced this before. Ever since I've always preferred using a docker compose file so that all those myriad configurations get saved correctly.
  - snapplebobapple 4y ago
    You guys need to use docker compose, then it is as simple as docker compose pull then docker compose up -d --force-recreate. I keep my containers each in their own dir with a docker compose file with the volumes specified as ./volmedirname:/mountpointincontainer Which makes it dead simple to write a bash script to go in to each dir, do a docker compose pull then bring everything up again. Extra points to call that script from cron.
fiddlerwoaroof 4y ago
This is cool, but I’m a bit wary of closed source tools like this ever since Google Reader shut down. Is it possible to self-host this?
- khet 4y ago
  If you could email me, I'm trying to see if self-hosting is doable. Thanks! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35404958 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35404958
EvanAnderson 4y ago
A shout out for Tiny Tiny RSS[1] for a self-hosted feed reader. I used a heavily modified fork from years ago but the current version looks pretty good. (I made a couple of really simple contributions back in the day but decided maintaining my own fork was the easy path. The maintainer has a reputation for being a bit prickly to deal with. He wasn't uncivil or anything, but it was clearly his project and that's just fine.) [1] https://tt-rss.org/ https://tt-rss.org/
- strunz 4y ago
  I used to use TT-RSS years ago, but switched to FreshRSS which is much more active and feature full - https://github.com/FreshRSS/FreshRSS https://github.com/FreshRSS/FreshRSS
stanislavb 4y ago
For those interested in "alternative" RSS Readers, I'd welcome you giving a go to my opinionated RSS (not only) reader - https://lenns.io https://lenns.io. It supports tracking articles by headlines in those cases when a blog or a website doesn't support RSS. Plus a few other goodies, like assigning priorities to your feeds (and topics) and limiting the number of posts per source. Enjoy.
- paulirish 4y ago
  I'm interested.. but is it possible to show a demo experience so I can get a taste before registering?
- O1111OOO 4y ago
  One thing I didn't see listed on the home/feature page: ability to send a random article/link you might be reading to a 'read later" folder (like Pocket for Firefox). It's a feature that naturally fits into RSS and helps keep everything in one place. This would probably require browser extensions for best integration/ease of use.
billconan 4y ago
I like it, but I hope it can have a shortcut to dismiss a read article. it has a dark mode.
xxdesmus 4y ago
Self hosting option? Looks great, but I’d rather avoid a SaaS service if possible.
- khet 4y ago
  OP here: I'm considering it. Can you email me please? (email in profile) Would love to figure out a way I can work out a self hosted version for those who want it, given there is enough interest in it. This goes to anyone else who's interested in self hosting, please email me! Thanks!
  - djbusby 4y ago
    Could just throw it in docker and let folk try their best. Some projects that's their only supported self-hosting option.
flas9sd 4y ago
looks very neat, your effort shows. Look forward to feed it with some of my urls.
butz 4y ago
I have a project on my backlog to build "Google Reader" how it might have looked today, but Google is very slow with their Material Design 3 implementation for Web.
6451937099 4y ago
[dead]

115 points by khet 4y ago

I saw the title and thought "eh, I've seen RSS readers before". But darn if that isn't a comfortable interface to look at.

imbnwa 4y ago
Haven't seen well-though-out information density like this in a minute
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

gareve 4y ago

Hug of Death?

khet 4y ago
OP Here, I think so. Digging into why it's taking so long to load.
- whoibrar 4y ago
  I got 501 Gateway, if that helps

wslh 4y ago

What had Google Reader that was amazing and no RSS existing today has is feed history: when you added a blog to Google Reader you could traverse the feed as if you added it from the beginning of the blog (intersection with the born of Google Reader). BTW, I wrote something along the topic above in an article from 2011 [1]. [1] Extraction of Main Text Content Using the Google Reader NoAPI: http://blog.databigbang.com/extraction-of-main-text-content/ http://blog.databigbang.com/extraction-of-main-text-content/

qbasic_forever 4y ago
I forgot that and you're totally right. It was awesome to scroll (and search!) through a feed's entire history. Ugh it makes me so mad Google got rid of all that for nothing.
1bent 4y ago
At the time they shut down Listen, some podcasts (e.g. Car Talk) were closing their back episodes and charging money for them; I figured that's why Google decided to stop the service.
- dirtyid 4y ago
  Did Listen not support password protected feeds? I remember a solid 2-3 years after Listen was killed (2012-2015) where Android had no passable podcast player.
dirtyid 4y ago
Pretty sure Feedly supports feed history, takes some time to pull archive onto their servers on obscure feeds though.
voytec 4y ago
> no RSS existing today Some sites are generating feeds with links to all articles, not just newest ones. But mostly smaller, personal blogs.

AlbertCory 4y ago

I'm living with Feedly. Reluctantly. I don't think it's very sticky and I'd happily switch to this thing (which is giving me 504 Gateway Time-out right now) if it's any better.

petercooper 4y ago
Have a quick look at Feedbin. I've been using it for a few years now and it's the most Reader-ish of the options I've found so far. Feedly is too algorithm-y for me.
Arainach 4y ago
What would make an RSS reader sticky? If all you want is an ordered list there aren't many features to keep you attached. I've been using Feedly since Reader shut down and it's been fine. Every time I want to add a new feed via URL I feel it's needlessly difficult and suspect they may have moved my cheese once again, but for reading the feeds I'm subscribed to it works great.
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  > What would make an RSS reader sticky? Exactly: nothing. You can export your feeds and import them somewhere else. Ditto on adding new feeds. I can never remember how to do it, and if I do, it doesn't work anymore.
CharlesW 4y ago
> I'm living with Feedly. Reluctantly. FYI, there are a bunch of apps that sync with Feedly and that you can use as an alternate front end. NetNewsWire (Mac, iOS) is one example that's worth checking out, but there are many options that cover every OS.
seba_dos1 4y ago
I've been using a self-hosted CommaFeed instance for many many years now and it filled a Google Reader-shaped hole in my reading habits perfectly.
dirtyid 4y ago

sys_64738 4y ago

When Google killed Reader I stopped trusting them at that point as I realized they'd kill everything to maintain control. I hate GOOG nowadays and hope they become less influential on the internet.

matthewfcarlson 4y ago
Granted, the audience here is a little skewed but I feel like the death of reader generated significant mistrust that I’m not sure google expected.
- fiddlerwoaroof 4y ago
  Yeah, my impression at the time was that programmers and tech-related media turned against Google basically overnight when Reader was killed. I think the importance of Reader wasn’t “everybody used it” but “the people in a position to influence the public perception of Google used it”.
- ukuuru 4y ago
  I believe it is about the audience, they are very casual about killing products. The users of the Reader was people with interest and influence in technology. Killing a product that is utilized by the people with the higher influence created no good.

russellbeattie 4y ago

I actually saw this submission via Inoreader. It's got everything I want and need in a news reader. Been using it for years now and there's little I'd change about it. Each person has their own preferences, of course, but I recommend it highly.

Euphorbium 4y ago
Google reader had to die, so the inoreader could thrive. It is so good.
roldie 4y ago
Another +1 for Inoreader. So many great features
- stereoradonc 4y ago
  And yet another ++1 for Inoreader. I don't find the need to consider the "alternatives"
snapplebobapple 4y ago
I like inoreader too but i dont miss it after switching to freshrss. I was tired of paying them each year. The mobile browser is really good i frshrss, atleast when added to the desktop via bravr in android.

1bent 4y ago

When Google ditched Reader, they told me how to export my OPML, so I did, and vowed to never again depend on a cloud service for something I could do with a local client app. I've moved from one to another over the years. At the moment I'm using Feeder on Android. Likewise when they dropped Listen for podcasts, currently I'm on Antennapod. If I can get an app from f-droid, I prefer it. I can live with backing up my OPML files whenever I add a blog or podcast, and having no web server for desktop use or tracking read/unread progress; I just only consume from my primary phone.

croutonwagon 4y ago
I had a similar sentiment. I did briefly use feedly until they started messing with their login screens some time back. See, I had a local feedly login (with randomized password etc) but they Sussed out it was a google workspace enabled account/domain and would constantly try to redirect me to googles oath. I moved to miniflux and love it. Easy to manage and super lightweight. The only “feature” I wish it had was a “mark all items older than 1 day as read”. You can mark all as read. And you can inverse your sort date and expand how many articles are paginated to mark large swaths as read. But a simple button to do some cleaning if I hadn’t read feeds in a week (and likely wouldn’t care for week old content) would be great. Still is amazing overall and even that is a nitpick. In fact I donated a bit to the maintainer just this month.
- flkiwi 4y ago
  miniflux is great. I'm hesitant to ask for more features to a lightweight, stable RSS service, but it would be super-nice to be able to enter a youtube username (for example) and have it build a feed from it, as Google is, at best, wildly inconsistent about providing youtube RSS feeds. Essentially baked-in rsshub functionality. But I'm fine running rsshub in parallel.
  - croutonwagon 4y ago
    > I'm hesitant to ask for more features to a lightweight, stable RSS service, Agree entirely. Which is why I never bothered to even ask the dev about my “nitpick”. I did try a few git repos that would do similar, but they were based on old builds of ruby and well, it didn’t go too well (and I’m not a Ruby on Rails person). That said I will just periodically purge all reads, and history, and refresh all feeds in background to keep it running smooth. It’s actually how I came to this very thread. Re: YouTube, have you tried putting in a channel URL? Miniflux is great at finding rss feeds from indirect urls. But I have noticed rss is increasingly being stripped from sites, probably in an attempt to drive actual traffic stats. I usually try to visit the external link for some sites to give them the traffic/hits. Nevertheless some of my favorite feeds like TalkingPoints Memo and The Drive have completely stripped RSS off their site, which is a shame.

orcul 4y ago

My favorite web based rss reader https://bazqux.com/ https://bazqux.com/

xpil 4y ago

I was a heavy Google Reader user. When it disappeared, I switched to NewsBlur. NewsBlur is great but it lacks one particular feature: an RSS feed for a folder of blogs. (or a category of blogs, potato - potahto) So I switched to self-hosted FreshRSS. It has all the features I want (plus, unlike NewsBlur, it's free) but it is Docker-based and I am already like 10 versions behind and I am too lazy/scared to learn how to upgrade it without destroying the Universe. BoredReading has a fantastic UI and I absolutely love the approach and organization of feeds. Key shortcuts are cool, too. If there is ever a self-hosted version that I can feed with my own stuff from scratch (ideally via an OPML file), I'd go for it immediately.

arepublicadoceu 4y ago
> but it is Docker-based and I am already like 10 versions behind and I am too lazy/scared to learn how to upgrade it without destroying the Universe. You should be scared, the other day I messed a completely functioning miniflux docker by upgrading it. It's been so long since I set it all up that I lost the incantation necessary for the setup or the will to look it up, just went ahead and I'm using newsblur again. Sigh. I'm getting old and loosing the will/patience to selfhost.
- thunderbong 4y ago
  I've faced this before. Ever since I've always preferred using a docker compose file so that all those myriad configurations get saved correctly.
- snapplebobapple 4y ago
  You guys need to use docker compose, then it is as simple as docker compose pull then docker compose up -d --force-recreate. I keep my containers each in their own dir with a docker compose file with the volumes specified as ./volmedirname:/mountpointincontainer Which makes it dead simple to write a bash script to go in to each dir, do a docker compose pull then bring everything up again. Extra points to call that script from cron.

fiddlerwoaroof 4y ago

This is cool, but I’m a bit wary of closed source tools like this ever since Google Reader shut down. Is it possible to self-host this?

khet 4y ago
If you could email me, I'm trying to see if self-hosting is doable. Thanks! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35404958 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35404958

EvanAnderson 4y ago

A shout out for Tiny Tiny RSS[1] for a self-hosted feed reader. I used a heavily modified fork from years ago but the current version looks pretty good. (I made a couple of really simple contributions back in the day but decided maintaining my own fork was the easy path. The maintainer has a reputation for being a bit prickly to deal with. He wasn't uncivil or anything, but it was clearly his project and that's just fine.) [1] https://tt-rss.org/ https://tt-rss.org/

strunz 4y ago
I used to use TT-RSS years ago, but switched to FreshRSS which is much more active and feature full - https://github.com/FreshRSS/FreshRSS https://github.com/FreshRSS/FreshRSS

stanislavb 4y ago

For those interested in "alternative" RSS Readers, I'd welcome you giving a go to my opinionated RSS (not only) reader - https://lenns.io https://lenns.io. It supports tracking articles by headlines in those cases when a blog or a website doesn't support RSS. Plus a few other goodies, like assigning priorities to your feeds (and topics) and limiting the number of posts per source. Enjoy.

paulirish 4y ago
I'm interested.. but is it possible to show a demo experience so I can get a taste before registering?
O1111OOO 4y ago
One thing I didn't see listed on the home/feature page: ability to send a random article/link you might be reading to a 'read later" folder (like Pocket for Firefox). It's a feature that naturally fits into RSS and helps keep everything in one place. This would probably require browser extensions for best integration/ease of use.

billconan 4y ago

I like it, but I hope it can have a shortcut to dismiss a read article. it has a dark mode.

xxdesmus 4y ago

Self hosting option? Looks great, but I’d rather avoid a SaaS service if possible.

khet 4y ago
OP here: I'm considering it. Can you email me please? (email in profile) Would love to figure out a way I can work out a self hosted version for those who want it, given there is enough interest in it. This goes to anyone else who's interested in self hosting, please email me! Thanks!
- djbusby 4y ago
  Could just throw it in docker and let folk try their best. Some projects that's their only supported self-hosting option.

flas9sd 4y ago

looks very neat, your effort shows. Look forward to feed it with some of my urls.

butz 4y ago

I have a project on my backlog to build "Google Reader" how it might have looked today, but Google is very slow with their Material Design 3 implementation for Web.

6451937099 4y ago

[dead]