6 ms·

Google Reader Alternatives

40 points by fraqed 14y ago

Toshio 14y ago
Can anyone point to a full-fledged review of The Old Reader? I could only find first impressions by googling around for a bit.
- bimozx 14y ago
  I've been using it for a few days, but I can only comment on how they present the feeds, since I don't use the social features at all. It's pretty decent, there is no frills and pretty straightforward. If you want an RSS reader with a simple interface, and doesn't impose anything on you, this should be suitable for you. But, there are two huge things that are a turn-off for me. First, I can't set the default homepage to be where all my subscription feeds' items are aggregated. So you will be left with the dashboard page when you open The Old Reader. Second, the feeds' items are not sorted in the order they were created or posted by default, but what irks me is I can't find any options so that it will be sorted according to the dates. I don't know if both of these things are something they will fix or add in the future, so I'm still jumping back and forth between this and Feedly. If they are not planning to address both of those caveats in the future, and Feedly delivers their promise on the seamless migration when Google Reader dies. Then I'll probably opt for Feedly.
  - webwanderings 14y ago
    There is an arrow icon for sorting.
    - bimozx 14y ago
      I've tried the arrow icon, and I already tried the "Posts Order" option on settings, but my feeds' items are still not ordered according to the dates. So unless I'm missing something... Here is an image to shed some more clarity on what I really meant. http://i.imgur.com/1Zb18cc.jpg http://i.imgur.com/1Zb18cc.jpg
      - webwanderings 14y ago
        Well, as I mentioned below, they are extremely slow at the moment and they are not even fetching all the feeds on time. I gave them HN's feed yesterday and when I logged in this morning, they were showing me feeds from 10 hours ago. My local RSS aggregater was providing me real-time updates. So perhaps that's where the problem is? I am not sure. As far as I am concerned, if they cannot handle couple of feeds on time, than I don't know how they're going to handle 500 plus feeds that I have.
- webwanderings 14y ago
  You use it and you know. I gave them my Google credentials yesterday, I uploaded my OPML as well. The website is extremely slow (which is understood). The OPML is waiting in the queue somewhere. I dropped few RSS feeds to test. Site runs slow. I logged in this morning, saw HN news from 10 hours ago sitting at the top. I have decided to move on. I am simultaneously testing local RSS feed reader as well (quiet-rss). Notwithstanding the syncing problem between multiple computers, it at least gives me the very latest news.
- mieses 14y ago
  For those who don't use or need Reader's social features, could you please add an option to disable read permission on our entire Google contact list when signing up for The Old Reader?
616c 14y ago
I am disappointed no one talks about hosting their own. Mod me down if you want, proud user of Tiny Tiny RSS, which comes with a Web UI, a mobile app (costs money, but still cheap), and a pretty cool API for a simple PHP app. Some of us learned our lesson, and will not moved to another crappy "service" that will shut down in a few years. Just like I do not host my blog on Posterous. https://github.com/gothfox/Tiny-Tiny-RSS https://github.com/gothfox/Tiny-Tiny-RSS
- Semaphor 14y ago
  > Honorable mentions this week go out to TinyTinyRSS, a self-hosted RSS reading app that allows you to grab your feeds on any system, as long as you have a web host and you're comfortable installing and setting it up. The process actually isn't that difficult, and full disclosure, I'm thinking about doing this myself. Since there's a Tiny Tiny RSS Android client to go with it, it's worth a look. Plus, it's free and open source, and at the end of the day you own your feeds and your data, and it won't shut down on you. That said, I tried it and found it annoying to work with as well as incredibly slow. I paid for Newsblur and if they ever go down I'll jump into the relatively complicated installation process on my server. edit: And of course there are other options: Fever [1], the hopefully soon finished News [2] app for ownCloud [3] and Newsblur [4] is open source as well. [1] http://www.feedafever.com/ http://www.feedafever.com/ [2] http://algorithmsforthekitchen.com/blog/?p=479 http://algorithmsforthekitchen.com/blog/?p=479 [3] http://owncloud.org/ http://owncloud.org/ [4] https://github.com/samuelclay/NewsBlur https://github.com/samuelclay/NewsBlur
  - maguay 14y ago
    I love Fever, and just switched to it. I included it on my own roundup at Web.AppStorm: http://web.appstorm.net/roundups/rssfeeds/google-reader-is-dead-heres-what-you-need-to-replace-google-reader/ http://web.appstorm.net/roundups/rssfeeds/google-reader-is-d.... I think people don't mention self-hosted options as much because most people would immediately think it was too much trouble to run their own service. For someone hosting their own site already, though, it's incredibly simple to host something like this yourself. Surprising more people don't.
vamonos 14y ago
I'm pretty happy with http://www.feedly.com/ http://www.feedly.com/ so far. No brainer to import my feeds from reader, and pretty nice presentation. I'm actually happy now that I was forced into switching. My biggest pain point was replacing Google Listen (on android for listening to my podcasts). Subscribing to a new podcast was as easy as adding a new feed to reader under the 'Listen Subscriptions' folder. But I've replaced Listen with Pocket Casts and I'm happy with it so far. For more info, see http://www.vamonossoftware.com/2013/03/living-without-google-reader-and-listen.html http://www.vamonossoftware.com/2013/03/living-without-google...
- LordIllidan 14y ago
  I really liked their iphone/ipad apps. I have to agree that I'm actually happy this happened - this way, Feedly and the other services can compete without being overshadowed by Reader.
- adad95 14y ago
  Google Listen is Very Limit Podcast Player. After i Discovery beyondpod, i never use Lister aging. http://www.beyondpod.com/Android/ http://www.beyondpod.com/Android/ Beyondpod sync with Google Reader too. And i will miss this function.
  - vamonos 14y ago
    Yeah, Listen was discontinued in 2012 so it wasn't ever going to improve - but it did the job for me for long enough. Pocket Casts has 2 features I missed in Listen : variable speed playback and sleep timer.
jobigoud 14y ago
Can someone point out the features I've been missing all along by using a Desktop RSS reader? Is it just synchronization or is there something else to it?
- __chrismc 14y ago
  It's mostly about the synchronisation. For my use-case, I read articles in Google Reader during my lunch break at work. When I'm browsing at home later, on my own PC or iPad I don't want to have to wade through dozens of articles I've already read to find the new stuff. I guess there's also the convenience of access to the web app pretty much anywhere, but that's secondary (to me).
- webwanderings 14y ago
  1. local memory consumption. 2. synchronization between multiple computers. I am testing quiet-rss. I also tested RSSOwl. In fact I used to use Firefox's Brief a long while ago and I used it for extended period of time. None of these comes close to Google Reader for above mentioned issues. GR just works.
- cnahr 14y ago
  Aside from synchronization between multiple devices there's also Google Reader's enormous cache of old articles. The RSS feeds themselves usually keep only a dozen or so of their latest entries while GR usually presents the entire history. Sadly, I don't think any replacement will be able to duplicate that.
patrickmay 14y ago
What I find most appealing about Google Reader is the simplicity of the interface. I just want to see a list of the sites I'm following, an indicator when new content is available, a summary of the content, and the ability to view the full content. That's it. Nothing flashy, nothing social, just the Emacs (or even vi) of RSS readers. Newsblur comes closest for me so far, but I suspect I'll end up rolling my own.
- Ziomislaw 14y ago
  looking for a simple alternative I found http://bazqux.com/ http://bazqux.com/ . You do have to pay for it (That was one of my requirements - that might be a barrier for some)
  - pppp 14y ago
    OMG, thanks. Finally a reader as fast as Google reader.
- cake 14y ago
  What I like about Reader is the speed. Newsblur feels slow and bloated and of all the RSS readers I have tried it was the best. So now I just said fuck it and I'm working on my own reader using much of the work from http://rsslounge.aditu.de/ http://rsslounge.aditu.de/
- chmars 14y ago
  I agree with your first paragraph. However, I'm still hoping that Reeder will support NewsBlur (or maybe another service) so that I can continue to read my feeds offline. Internet is still not always available (and if available, sometimes only very slow or very expensive). That's why I still appreciate offline reading.
- jack-r-abbit 14y ago
  Same here. I don't care about someone else's algorithms for finding me news stories or any social aspects of sharing. I follow the feeds I follow and just want them served up to me in one place. And if by some random chance I want to share that with someone, I'll do that my own way. What I want from an RSS reader is just that... read my RSS. That is all.
prathibhanu 14y ago
Its high time to try the new Visually rich RSS reader http://goo.gl/r861h http://goo.gl/r861h .
- jrajav 14y ago
  Visually rich is precisely what I don't want from an RSS reader. Looking at that feed, my eyes bounce all over the place trying to parse the content I'm interested in - the headlines. I'd rather have a vertical, textual list that I can quickly scan. It's boring, but that's the nature of the medium. This is one of the reasons I've never tried Pulse, but at least that lines the content up for easier scanning.
- webwanderings 14y ago
  People of Google Reader are typically not into Pinterest type feed readers.
specto 14y ago
I've started using http://selfoss.aditu.de/ http://selfoss.aditu.de/. It is written in php with a mysql or sqlite database. It works great and with some tweaks from vince(https://github.com/vincebusam/selfoss https://github.com/vincebusam/selfoss) it works even better.
Intermediate 14y ago
I decided to go with Liferea desktop RSS reader and I like it so far.
tomku 14y ago
The article makes mentions mobile clients, but could anyone here give a slightly more mobile-centric review of the alternatives? Since I've gotten a Nexus 7, I've found myself using the Google Reader Android app rather than the web app, and I view Android app quality as one of the biggest factors in selecting a replacement service. The first alternative I tried was Newsblur. I like their web version, although it's been unresponsive occasionally due to the influx of users. However, their official Android app has left me unsatisfied. In about 5 minutes of playing with it, I got duplicate articles, then a negative unread count, then a crash. I'm willing to give it more time to iron out the bugs, but in the meantime, what other alternatives (if any) have really solid Android apps?
- guizzy 14y ago
  The people behind Press, the best Google Reader app on Android, are apparently working on finding another place to host its content, but they have no webapp for now. Feedly has a good Android app and webapp, but it's more of a Flipboard type of interface than a Google Reader interface. I've gone with Newsblur; hopefully they'll work a bit on the Android app, but for now it's the one with the best feature set.
  - tomku 14y ago
    I tried Feedly after posting that, and I don't like the minimalist styling of both the web app and the Android app. I could probably get used to it, but I think I'm happier with Newsblur for the moment. I'll keep an eye on Press's plans, they seem like they could be a good alternative depending on which way they choose to go to handle the Reader shutdown. Thanks for the info.
jimigoodmojo 14y ago
I don't care about reader as a reader. I care about it because it manages my rss subscriptions for several apps I use daily. Podcasts, pulse, ifttt. They all integrate with reader. Typography,shmypography. pick a client. This is the reason they are shutting it down. How do you monetize something when the user never sees your content. I understand that, but it doesn't mean the internet didn't just get worse.

40 points by fraqed 14y ago

Can anyone point to a full-fledged review of The Old Reader? I could only find first impressions by googling around for a bit.

bimozx 14y ago
I've been using it for a few days, but I can only comment on how they present the feeds, since I don't use the social features at all. It's pretty decent, there is no frills and pretty straightforward. If you want an RSS reader with a simple interface, and doesn't impose anything on you, this should be suitable for you. But, there are two huge things that are a turn-off for me. First, I can't set the default homepage to be where all my subscription feeds' items are aggregated. So you will be left with the dashboard page when you open The Old Reader. Second, the feeds' items are not sorted in the order they were created or posted by default, but what irks me is I can't find any options so that it will be sorted according to the dates. I don't know if both of these things are something they will fix or add in the future, so I'm still jumping back and forth between this and Feedly. If they are not planning to address both of those caveats in the future, and Feedly delivers their promise on the seamless migration when Google Reader dies. Then I'll probably opt for Feedly.
- webwanderings 14y ago
  There is an arrow icon for sorting.
  - bimozx 14y ago
    I've tried the arrow icon, and I already tried the "Posts Order" option on settings, but my feeds' items are still not ordered according to the dates. So unless I'm missing something... Here is an image to shed some more clarity on what I really meant. http://i.imgur.com/1Zb18cc.jpg http://i.imgur.com/1Zb18cc.jpg
    - webwanderings 14y ago
      Well, as I mentioned below, they are extremely slow at the moment and they are not even fetching all the feeds on time. I gave them HN's feed yesterday and when I logged in this morning, they were showing me feeds from 10 hours ago. My local RSS aggregater was providing me real-time updates. So perhaps that's where the problem is? I am not sure. As far as I am concerned, if they cannot handle couple of feeds on time, than I don't know how they're going to handle 500 plus feeds that I have.
webwanderings 14y ago
You use it and you know. I gave them my Google credentials yesterday, I uploaded my OPML as well. The website is extremely slow (which is understood). The OPML is waiting in the queue somewhere. I dropped few RSS feeds to test. Site runs slow. I logged in this morning, saw HN news from 10 hours ago sitting at the top. I have decided to move on. I am simultaneously testing local RSS feed reader as well (quiet-rss). Notwithstanding the syncing problem between multiple computers, it at least gives me the very latest news.
mieses 14y ago
For those who don't use or need Reader's social features, could you please add an option to disable read permission on our entire Google contact list when signing up for The Old Reader?

616c 14y ago

I am disappointed no one talks about hosting their own. Mod me down if you want, proud user of Tiny Tiny RSS, which comes with a Web UI, a mobile app (costs money, but still cheap), and a pretty cool API for a simple PHP app. Some of us learned our lesson, and will not moved to another crappy "service" that will shut down in a few years. Just like I do not host my blog on Posterous. https://github.com/gothfox/Tiny-Tiny-RSS https://github.com/gothfox/Tiny-Tiny-RSS

Semaphor 14y ago
> Honorable mentions this week go out to TinyTinyRSS, a self-hosted RSS reading app that allows you to grab your feeds on any system, as long as you have a web host and you're comfortable installing and setting it up. The process actually isn't that difficult, and full disclosure, I'm thinking about doing this myself. Since there's a Tiny Tiny RSS Android client to go with it, it's worth a look. Plus, it's free and open source, and at the end of the day you own your feeds and your data, and it won't shut down on you. That said, I tried it and found it annoying to work with as well as incredibly slow. I paid for Newsblur and if they ever go down I'll jump into the relatively complicated installation process on my server. edit: And of course there are other options: Fever [1], the hopefully soon finished News [2] app for ownCloud [3] and Newsblur [4] is open source as well. [1] http://www.feedafever.com/ http://www.feedafever.com/ [2] http://algorithmsforthekitchen.com/blog/?p=479 http://algorithmsforthekitchen.com/blog/?p=479 [3] http://owncloud.org/ http://owncloud.org/ [4] https://github.com/samuelclay/NewsBlur https://github.com/samuelclay/NewsBlur
- maguay 14y ago
  I love Fever, and just switched to it. I included it on my own roundup at Web.AppStorm: http://web.appstorm.net/roundups/rssfeeds/google-reader-is-dead-heres-what-you-need-to-replace-google-reader/ http://web.appstorm.net/roundups/rssfeeds/google-reader-is-d.... I think people don't mention self-hosted options as much because most people would immediately think it was too much trouble to run their own service. For someone hosting their own site already, though, it's incredibly simple to host something like this yourself. Surprising more people don't.

vamonos 14y ago

I'm pretty happy with http://www.feedly.com/ http://www.feedly.com/ so far. No brainer to import my feeds from reader, and pretty nice presentation. I'm actually happy now that I was forced into switching. My biggest pain point was replacing Google Listen (on android for listening to my podcasts). Subscribing to a new podcast was as easy as adding a new feed to reader under the 'Listen Subscriptions' folder. But I've replaced Listen with Pocket Casts and I'm happy with it so far. For more info, see http://www.vamonossoftware.com/2013/03/living-without-google-reader-and-listen.html http://www.vamonossoftware.com/2013/03/living-without-google...

LordIllidan 14y ago
I really liked their iphone/ipad apps. I have to agree that I'm actually happy this happened - this way, Feedly and the other services can compete without being overshadowed by Reader.
adad95 14y ago
Google Listen is Very Limit Podcast Player. After i Discovery beyondpod, i never use Lister aging. http://www.beyondpod.com/Android/ http://www.beyondpod.com/Android/ Beyondpod sync with Google Reader too. And i will miss this function.
- vamonos 14y ago
  Yeah, Listen was discontinued in 2012 so it wasn't ever going to improve - but it did the job for me for long enough. Pocket Casts has 2 features I missed in Listen : variable speed playback and sleep timer.

jobigoud 14y ago

Can someone point out the features I've been missing all along by using a Desktop RSS reader? Is it just synchronization or is there something else to it?

__chrismc 14y ago
It's mostly about the synchronisation. For my use-case, I read articles in Google Reader during my lunch break at work. When I'm browsing at home later, on my own PC or iPad I don't want to have to wade through dozens of articles I've already read to find the new stuff. I guess there's also the convenience of access to the web app pretty much anywhere, but that's secondary (to me).
webwanderings 14y ago
1. local memory consumption. 2. synchronization between multiple computers. I am testing quiet-rss. I also tested RSSOwl. In fact I used to use Firefox's Brief a long while ago and I used it for extended period of time. None of these comes close to Google Reader for above mentioned issues. GR just works.
cnahr 14y ago
Aside from synchronization between multiple devices there's also Google Reader's enormous cache of old articles. The RSS feeds themselves usually keep only a dozen or so of their latest entries while GR usually presents the entire history. Sadly, I don't think any replacement will be able to duplicate that.

patrickmay 14y ago

What I find most appealing about Google Reader is the simplicity of the interface. I just want to see a list of the sites I'm following, an indicator when new content is available, a summary of the content, and the ability to view the full content. That's it. Nothing flashy, nothing social, just the Emacs (or even vi) of RSS readers. Newsblur comes closest for me so far, but I suspect I'll end up rolling my own.

Ziomislaw 14y ago
looking for a simple alternative I found http://bazqux.com/ http://bazqux.com/ . You do have to pay for it (That was one of my requirements - that might be a barrier for some)
- pppp 14y ago
  OMG, thanks. Finally a reader as fast as Google reader.
cake 14y ago
What I like about Reader is the speed. Newsblur feels slow and bloated and of all the RSS readers I have tried it was the best. So now I just said fuck it and I'm working on my own reader using much of the work from http://rsslounge.aditu.de/ http://rsslounge.aditu.de/
chmars 14y ago
I agree with your first paragraph. However, I'm still hoping that Reeder will support NewsBlur (or maybe another service) so that I can continue to read my feeds offline. Internet is still not always available (and if available, sometimes only very slow or very expensive). That's why I still appreciate offline reading.
jack-r-abbit 14y ago
Same here. I don't care about someone else's algorithms for finding me news stories or any social aspects of sharing. I follow the feeds I follow and just want them served up to me in one place. And if by some random chance I want to share that with someone, I'll do that my own way. What I want from an RSS reader is just that... read my RSS. That is all.

prathibhanu 14y ago

Its high time to try the new Visually rich RSS reader http://goo.gl/r861h http://goo.gl/r861h .

jrajav 14y ago
Visually rich is precisely what I don't want from an RSS reader. Looking at that feed, my eyes bounce all over the place trying to parse the content I'm interested in - the headlines. I'd rather have a vertical, textual list that I can quickly scan. It's boring, but that's the nature of the medium. This is one of the reasons I've never tried Pulse, but at least that lines the content up for easier scanning.
webwanderings 14y ago
People of Google Reader are typically not into Pinterest type feed readers.

specto 14y ago

I've started using http://selfoss.aditu.de/ http://selfoss.aditu.de/. It is written in php with a mysql or sqlite database. It works great and with some tweaks from vince(https://github.com/vincebusam/selfoss https://github.com/vincebusam/selfoss) it works even better.

Intermediate 14y ago

I decided to go with Liferea desktop RSS reader and I like it so far.

tomku 14y ago

The article makes mentions mobile clients, but could anyone here give a slightly more mobile-centric review of the alternatives? Since I've gotten a Nexus 7, I've found myself using the Google Reader Android app rather than the web app, and I view Android app quality as one of the biggest factors in selecting a replacement service. The first alternative I tried was Newsblur. I like their web version, although it's been unresponsive occasionally due to the influx of users. However, their official Android app has left me unsatisfied. In about 5 minutes of playing with it, I got duplicate articles, then a negative unread count, then a crash. I'm willing to give it more time to iron out the bugs, but in the meantime, what other alternatives (if any) have really solid Android apps?

guizzy 14y ago
The people behind Press, the best Google Reader app on Android, are apparently working on finding another place to host its content, but they have no webapp for now. Feedly has a good Android app and webapp, but it's more of a Flipboard type of interface than a Google Reader interface. I've gone with Newsblur; hopefully they'll work a bit on the Android app, but for now it's the one with the best feature set.
- tomku 14y ago
  I tried Feedly after posting that, and I don't like the minimalist styling of both the web app and the Android app. I could probably get used to it, but I think I'm happier with Newsblur for the moment. I'll keep an eye on Press's plans, they seem like they could be a good alternative depending on which way they choose to go to handle the Reader shutdown. Thanks for the info.

jimigoodmojo 14y ago

I don't care about reader as a reader. I care about it because it manages my rss subscriptions for several apps I use daily. Podcasts, pulse, ifttt. They all integrate with reader. Typography,shmypography. pick a client. This is the reason they are shutting it down. How do you monetize something when the user never sees your content. I understand that, but it doesn't mean the internet didn't just get worse.