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0 pointsklausa13y ago0 comments

That's the first Google service shutdown that I'm affected by.

Sad to see it go.

What do you guys recommend for replacement? I know about NewsBlur [1], but I never liked it that much.

I think I'm just looking for something that would emulate Reader's full-screen view as close as possible.

[1] http://newsblur.com

edit: Here's what I consider an absolute must-have in RSS app:

- complete navigation with keyboard (j/k preferred)

- full screen mode (really, I don't need a sidebar of a fixed header all the time)

- feed view (not just list of items, show me excerpts!)

And I know I may be the weird one, but I really, really dislike readers that try to show me items directly from feeds webpage. I find it jarring and distracting when I have five totally different layouts flash before my eyes within 10 seconds (I skim headlines and then skip most of items in my feed).

And for the love of god, please, please, no goddamn 'WE LEARN WHAT YOU LIKE' or any kind of bullshit 'smart selection'. I selected my feeds myself, I can manage them just fine by myself, just get out of my way, please.

0 comments

spindritf13y ago

> What do you guys recommend for replacement?

That's the hard part. Reader integrates nicely with Android's Listen (podcast app), and the reader app, and there's plenty of standalone clients that sync with Google.

That's my most-used Google app. By far. Colossal disappointment.

TillE13y ago

Nice to know that there's still at least one other Google Listen user in the world. I'm a huge podcast consumer, I like listening to old podcasts which have fallen off the RSS feed, and I still haven't found anything better.

I honestly don't know what I'm going to do now. As far as I'm aware, nobody besides Google has been archiving RSS history for the past few years. It's a massive pain to dig for old podcast episodes any other way, as full feeds are extremely rare.

baytrailcat13y ago

I used to be a big Listen user, but the app was so buggy. Then I found Stitcher and never went back.

netfeed13y ago

Listen was better, but i kinda like PocketCasts, the only problem with that one is that it eats up battery :/

bhaile13y ago

BeyondPod. Been using that to manage my podcasts for a few years. It can import from Google Reader or maintain its own podcast list. Easy to export out if needed.

rietta13y ago

I used to use Google Listen, but at some point started using BeyondPod and recently - within the last couple of weeks - went to the paid version of BeyondPod. It works great.

sigil13y ago

Based on your must-have list, a good low-tech solution might be an RSS to email gateway.

Then your mail client becomes your RSS client. Gmail has j/k key bindings, is relatively unadorned, and facilitates your skim / skip workflow. Excerpts might require some work, but perhaps you could coerce them into the subject line.

Aaron Swartz wrote a nice RSS to email gateway btw: http://www.allthingsrss.com/rss2email/

I have a crappier one that delivers directly into a Maildir, and I use it to read news in mutt: http://search.cpan.org/~acg/rssdrop-0.2/rssdrop

quotemstr13y ago

"Low-tech"? Email is the best way to read RSS! Email has all the features of high-end RSS headers:

  * Remember your read messages, even across clients
  * Star and read for later
  * Cross-platform
  * Configurable archiving
  * Keyword filtering
  * Search past articles
  * Organize feeds into folders using configurable rules
  * Social! (Use the "forward" button.)

What's not to like about email?

egh13y ago

I'm surprised more people don't do this. It's pretty easy to set up.

Here's a little bit I wrote about using rss2email + emacs. http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/HOWTOReadFeedsInEmacsViaEmail

johns13y ago

IFTTT will let you easily do RSS to email too: ifttt.com/feed

kmfrk13y ago

I just Fever (http://www.feedafever.com/). You host it yourself, and it does the job perfectly.

dfgonzalez13y ago

Bought it a few years ago... and I wouldn't recommend it. It was created in a pre-iPad/iPhone era and it's not comfortable to use from anywhere else than a PC.

philwebster13y ago

I haven't used Fever personally, but I do know the popular Reeder RSS client for Mac and iOS has Fever support.

2 more replies

kmfrk13y ago

That's true, but you'll have to recommend something as an alternative instead, since there is only a finite amount of RSS services; I say that as an RSS power user.

Beggars can't be choosers. :)

pwenzel13y ago

Agreed. I moved to Fever ages ago, never looked back. Works great on my iPhone too.

Combined with Instapaper, I have feel like I have achieved the perfect reading workflow.

fendmark13y ago

I also vouch for Fever. Someone on HN recommended Fever to me when Bloglines initially bit the dust a couple years ago and it meets every need I've wanted from an RSS reader and more. The genius of it's design is that Fever gets more useful the more RSS feeds you subscribe to, which initially seems counter-intuitive, but is brilliant.

kbenson13y ago

Quicktime required for the demo video? Seriously? Sorry, I don't have quicktime installed on this computer, and the days of me installing local applications/plugins to watch video online are over.

karsonenns13y ago

Is this any good? Do you have the ability to customize it yourself?

kmfrk13y ago

I don't know what you mean by customize, but the extent of customization only extends to grouping feeds in folders and choosing how and in which order to display them.

So I wouldn't call it customizable.

initself13y ago

PHP and MySQL, yuck!

throwaway42013y ago

Is the software any less useful because it's not created in a trendy language?

One of the advantages that PHP has is that virtually any cheap web-host in the world can run it. It's not a bad choice to sell a self-hosted product in PHP because of this advantage.

I'm not a huge fan of PHP for many types of projects, but I don't see how it benefits anybody to reflexively hate on something just because of a technology choice.

1 more reply

pinchyfingers13y ago

We're here to make $$$, not to be trendy. There's plenty of good reasons to use PHP, especially if commercial viability is a primary goal.

dan1513y ago

PHP and MySQL aren't that bad (and support for them is pretty much guaranteed on every web host).

However, the fact that it supports PHP 4.2 and MySQL 3.23 makes me wonder how old the code base is! Makes me think it's using so many obsolete PHP methods, the deprecated MySQL extension, and is all procedural code (which almost always seems to be spaghetti code with PHP).

1 more reply

pwenzel13y ago

It works reliably on simple shared host. The developer rolls out automatic updates as well. PHP is a perfectly fine solution for this purpose.

krapp13y ago

If it works, it works.

srgseg13y ago

http://www.protopage.com has full screen mode with keyboard navigation if you first do Colors/Settings then untick "open news items directly" (Unticking this will mean headlines will open in the internal full text RSS news feed reader instead of navigating to the headline's web page directly).

pflats13y ago

http://netnewswireapp.com is wonderful for the Mac users out there that aren't tied to an HTML solution.

Pretty sure you can sync with your Google Reader account and then delete it from the app, and it'll remember your subscriptions. Just deleted mine and it works fine.

camillomiller13y ago

Netnewswire is great but now they should provide a new way to sync feeds and especially read/unread counts, flagged and unflagged items, and favorites instead of relying on GReader.

If someone wants a pitch here: don't go for a reader, go for a simple WebDAV like system to keep feeds in sync cross-app with APIs so simple that every dev would include it in its feed reading app!

dkeskar13y ago

Caveat: Still early[1], less featured than Google/RSS Reader. But also more.

[1] http://memamsa.com/start/gr

genwin13y ago

For a news aggregator that adapts to your interests, try niflet.com. I'll add any decent feeds people want.

SeppoErviala13y ago

No localization, I'm not too interested in USA news.

genwin13y ago

It has a lot of non-USA sites. Just upvote the stuff you like.

yaj13y ago

I have been using Twitter/Flipboard+Instapaper for a while now as a replacement for traditional RSS readers. I do use Tweetbot but most twitter clients do have "Read Later" applications integrated.

busted13y ago

I found bazqux.com which has the keyboard shortucts i wanted as well

erlichmen13y ago

> That's the first Google service shutdown that I'm affected by.

You never use Google Code Search RIP?

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

spindritf13y ago

> What do you guys recommend for replacement?

That's the hard part. Reader integrates nicely with Android's Listen (podcast app), and the reader app, and there's plenty of standalone clients that sync with Google.

That's my most-used Google app. By far. Colossal disappointment.

TillE13y ago

baytrailcat13y ago

I used to be a big Listen user, but the app was so buggy. Then I found Stitcher and never went back.

netfeed13y ago

Listen was better, but i kinda like PocketCasts, the only problem with that one is that it eats up battery :/

bhaile13y ago

BeyondPod. Been using that to manage my podcasts for a few years. It can import from Google Reader or maintain its own podcast list. Easy to export out if needed.

rietta13y ago

I used to use Google Listen, but at some point started using BeyondPod and recently - within the last couple of weeks - went to the paid version of BeyondPod. It works great.

sigil13y ago

Based on your must-have list, a good low-tech solution might be an RSS to email gateway.

Aaron Swartz wrote a nice RSS to email gateway btw: http://www.allthingsrss.com/rss2email/

I have a crappier one that delivers directly into a Maildir, and I use it to read news in mutt: http://search.cpan.org/~acg/rssdrop-0.2/rssdrop

quotemstr13y ago

"Low-tech"? Email is the best way to read RSS! Email has all the features of high-end RSS headers:

  * Remember your read messages, even across clients
  * Star and read for later
  * Cross-platform
  * Configurable archiving
  * Keyword filtering
  * Search past articles
  * Organize feeds into folders using configurable rules
  * Social! (Use the "forward" button.)

What's not to like about email?

egh13y ago

I'm surprised more people don't do this. It's pretty easy to set up.

Here's a little bit I wrote about using rss2email + emacs. http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/HOWTOReadFeedsInEmacsViaEmail

johns13y ago

IFTTT will let you easily do RSS to email too: ifttt.com/feed

kmfrk13y ago

I just Fever (http://www.feedafever.com/). You host it yourself, and it does the job perfectly.

dfgonzalez13y ago

Bought it a few years ago... and I wouldn't recommend it. It was created in a pre-iPad/iPhone era and it's not comfortable to use from anywhere else than a PC.

philwebster13y ago

I haven't used Fever personally, but I do know the popular Reeder RSS client for Mac and iOS has Fever support.

2 more replies

kmfrk13y ago

That's true, but you'll have to recommend something as an alternative instead, since there is only a finite amount of RSS services; I say that as an RSS power user.

Beggars can't be choosers. :)

pwenzel13y ago

Agreed. I moved to Fever ages ago, never looked back. Works great on my iPhone too.

Combined with Instapaper, I have feel like I have achieved the perfect reading workflow.

fendmark13y ago

kbenson13y ago

Quicktime required for the demo video? Seriously? Sorry, I don't have quicktime installed on this computer, and the days of me installing local applications/plugins to watch video online are over.

karsonenns13y ago

Is this any good? Do you have the ability to customize it yourself?

kmfrk13y ago

I don't know what you mean by customize, but the extent of customization only extends to grouping feeds in folders and choosing how and in which order to display them.

So I wouldn't call it customizable.

initself13y ago

PHP and MySQL, yuck!

throwaway42013y ago

Is the software any less useful because it's not created in a trendy language?

One of the advantages that PHP has is that virtually any cheap web-host in the world can run it. It's not a bad choice to sell a self-hosted product in PHP because of this advantage.

I'm not a huge fan of PHP for many types of projects, but I don't see how it benefits anybody to reflexively hate on something just because of a technology choice.

1 more reply

pinchyfingers13y ago

We're here to make $$$, not to be trendy. There's plenty of good reasons to use PHP, especially if commercial viability is a primary goal.

dan1513y ago

PHP and MySQL aren't that bad (and support for them is pretty much guaranteed on every web host).

1 more reply

pwenzel13y ago

It works reliably on simple shared host. The developer rolls out automatic updates as well. PHP is a perfectly fine solution for this purpose.

krapp13y ago

If it works, it works.

srgseg13y ago

pflats13y ago

http://netnewswireapp.com is wonderful for the Mac users out there that aren't tied to an HTML solution.

Pretty sure you can sync with your Google Reader account and then delete it from the app, and it'll remember your subscriptions. Just deleted mine and it works fine.

camillomiller13y ago

Netnewswire is great but now they should provide a new way to sync feeds and especially read/unread counts, flagged and unflagged items, and favorites instead of relying on GReader.

If someone wants a pitch here: don't go for a reader, go for a simple WebDAV like system to keep feeds in sync cross-app with APIs so simple that every dev would include it in its feed reading app!

dkeskar13y ago

Caveat: Still early[1], less featured than Google/RSS Reader. But also more.

[1] http://memamsa.com/start/gr

genwin13y ago

For a news aggregator that adapts to your interests, try niflet.com. I'll add any decent feeds people want.

SeppoErviala13y ago

No localization, I'm not too interested in USA news.

genwin13y ago

It has a lot of non-USA sites. Just upvote the stuff you like.

yaj13y ago

I have been using Twitter/Flipboard+Instapaper for a while now as a replacement for traditional RSS readers. I do use Tweetbot but most twitter clients do have "Read Later" applications integrated.

busted13y ago

I found bazqux.com which has the keyboard shortucts i wanted as well

erlichmen13y ago

> That's the first Google service shutdown that I'm affected by.

You never use Google Code Search RIP?

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse