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Why is it that so many of these alternatives are hosted web apps? Isn't the lesson to learn from Google Reader going away that you might not want to trust hoste

by lambda 14y ago

Why is it that so many of these alternatives are hosted web apps? Isn't the lesson to learn from Google Reader going away that you might not want to trust hosted web apps for the long term? Why aren't there more client-side app alternatives?

garyrichardson 14y ago
Number of times google reader has a planned shut down, in which I still have plenty of time to grab my data: 1 Number of times something has happened to make an old desktop app stop working: numerous for example (I haven't experienced all of these): - switching from Windows -> Mac - having my hard drive fail and finding out my backups were broken - OSX upgrades breaking backwards compatibility (ie, old binary format) - having my laptop stolen - switching jobs, requiring me to give my laptop back - having multiple devices that I like to read news on (ie, phone, laptop, tablet) I much prefer to have as little as possible tied to the hunk of metal my sweaty fingers type on. I haven't lost any data yet from using 'cloud services' and the GR replacement I pick will be well vetted.
- gnosis 14y ago
  I value my privacy far more than any feature or convenience a web app may offer. This is one of the main reasons why I stay away from web apps as much as possible, and use open-source client-side apps whenever I can. As a side-benefit, I also don't have to rely on the whims of the web app provider to keep their service running. Unless you use web apps for absolutely everything, you're still going to have to make backups. And if you're making backups anyway, how hard is it to include a tiny little list of RSS feed URLs which can be used to pick up from where you left off with any RSS reader, should anything happen? Anyway, if you screw up your backups, you've got far more serious problems than simply restoring an RSS feed list. Do a good job on backups, and the rest mostly falls in to place.
pavel_lishin 14y ago
I don't use a client-side reader because one of my use cases is subscribing to a lot of feeds that have dozens of updates a day. Most of those feeds typically only show the last N items, where N is significantly less than the number of posts in a day. If I close my laptop for the weekend, that means I lose most of those entries in my reader.
- porsupah 14y ago
  If you use OS X, I can recommend Vienna, which has no problem at all with pulling and keeping as many feeds and articles as you want, up to as many as your filing system can cope with. It's mature, having been around for a few years now, and open source to boot.
  - pavel_lishin 14y ago
    The problem isn't running out of disk space, the problem is that when my computer is not running, it's going to miss some RSS entries.

by lambda 14y ago

garyrichardson 14y ago

Number of times google reader has a planned shut down, in which I still have plenty of time to grab my data: 1 Number of times something has happened to make an old desktop app stop working: numerous for example (I haven't experienced all of these): - switching from Windows -> Mac - having my hard drive fail and finding out my backups were broken - OSX upgrades breaking backwards compatibility (ie, old binary format) - having my laptop stolen - switching jobs, requiring me to give my laptop back - having multiple devices that I like to read news on (ie, phone, laptop, tablet) I much prefer to have as little as possible tied to the hunk of metal my sweaty fingers type on. I haven't lost any data yet from using 'cloud services' and the GR replacement I pick will be well vetted.

gnosis 14y ago
I value my privacy far more than any feature or convenience a web app may offer. This is one of the main reasons why I stay away from web apps as much as possible, and use open-source client-side apps whenever I can. As a side-benefit, I also don't have to rely on the whims of the web app provider to keep their service running. Unless you use web apps for absolutely everything, you're still going to have to make backups. And if you're making backups anyway, how hard is it to include a tiny little list of RSS feed URLs which can be used to pick up from where you left off with any RSS reader, should anything happen? Anyway, if you screw up your backups, you've got far more serious problems than simply restoring an RSS feed list. Do a good job on backups, and the rest mostly falls in to place.

pavel_lishin 14y ago

I don't use a client-side reader because one of my use cases is subscribing to a lot of feeds that have dozens of updates a day. Most of those feeds typically only show the last N items, where N is significantly less than the number of posts in a day. If I close my laptop for the weekend, that means I lose most of those entries in my reader.

porsupah 14y ago
If you use OS X, I can recommend Vienna, which has no problem at all with pulling and keeping as many feeds and articles as you want, up to as many as your filing system can cope with. It's mature, having been around for a few years now, and open source to boot.
- pavel_lishin 14y ago
  The problem isn't running out of disk space, the problem is that when my computer is not running, it's going to miss some RSS entries.