Ask HN: What is your favorite way to read online content? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What is your favorite way to read online content?

#11

Post by notatoad » Thu, May 28, 2020, 5:55 PM UTC

the nytimes website (with an adblocker) is about as good as it gets for me. my wants are pretty simple:

- nothing jumping around as i try to read, whole article on one page

- decent contrast (accessibility guidelines says >= 4.5:1)

- ~150% line height

- ~80char line width

- ~16pt font size

Re: Ask HN: What is your favorite way to read online content?

#12

Post by mintym » Thu, May 28, 2020, 5:58 PM UTC

From principles: you want to minimize the left right action of your eyes/neck, to reduce fatigue, and not blast your retinas with a wall of white pixels.

One column of centered text with a non-busy black and white background looks great. For a while I read Amazon books like that because I put the online reader in an iframe.

Now I use a HiSense A5 e-Ink screen with a remote control for page turning and I couldn't ask for more.

Re: Ask HN: What is your favorite way to read online content?

#13

Post by Avi-D-coder » Thu, May 28, 2020, 6:03 PM UTC

Pocket and @Voice apps tts. @Voice allows you to jump through text by double tapping and supports more sites and formats (PDF, etc.), but pocket manages your article list so much better so I use pocky 90% of the time.

Pockets uses a readermode view, so it's non tts UI is nicer, so if you don't care about tts just use pocket.

Firefox reader mode is also nice, Firefox preview is great.

Re: Ask HN: What is your favorite way to read online content?

#14

Post by blueridge » Thu, May 28, 2020, 6:10 PM UTC

I don't read much of anything online these days. Most "reading" environments treat you as a user, not a reader. Poor typography, endless scrolling, and an endless supply of content that isn't worth reading in the first place. So I mostly consume text on screen only so that I can accomplish tasks. In other words, "reading" online is a means to an end.

All that said, if I stumble on a long form piece of writing that looks interesting, I'll print it!

Re: Ask HN: What is your favorite way to read online content?

#15

Post by SamWhited » Thu, May 28, 2020, 6:11 PM UTC

I use Innoreader for feeds and a lot of email newsletters. If you don't like things in multiple places, Innoreader can also generate feeds from websites (with mixed results depending on the structure of the website) and can give you temporary emails that you can subscribe to newsletters in so that they'll show up in the same interface.

Re: Ask HN: What is your favorite way to read online content?

#16

Post by wrsh07 » Thu, May 28, 2020, 6:23 PM UTC

I like to bound the amount I read (fewer endless scrolling sites) by subscribing to a limited number of email lists.

It prevents fomo, idly browsing sites with content I've already read, etc

And if the content stops being high quality (or starts bring diluted with low quality content), unsubscribing is cheap

Ideally, I would pay ~$1000 per year and have high quality content (no more than 1-2 hours of reading per day) ranging my interests be delivered to my inbox

If something is overly topical, it'll quickly get archived if I didn't end up reading it the day it arrived

Re: Ask HN: What is your favorite way to read online content?

#17

Post by xfitm3 » Thu, May 28, 2020, 6:24 PM UTC

Avi-D-coder wrote: post #13

Pocket and @Voice apps tts. @Voice allows you to jump through text by double tapping and supports more sites and formats (PDF, etc.), but pocket manages your article list so much better so I use pocky 90% of the time. Pockets uses a readermode view, so it's non tts UI is nicer, so if you don't care about tts just use pocket. Firefox reader mode is also nice, Firefox preview is great.

I think Pocket also supports tts.

https://help.getpocket.com/article/1081-listening-to-article...

Re: Ask HN: What is your favorite way to read online content?

#18

Post by dilippkumar » Thu, May 28, 2020, 6:24 PM UTC

I am happily addicted to NetNewsWire 5.0 + Feedbin

I get extremely high quality content and no advertisements, tracking or pop-ups. Also, NetNewsWire is blazing fast.

If you're looking for some RSS recommendations:

[1] An extremely good blog for the latest in Covid related pharmaceutical research: https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/

[2] Math with bad drawings: https://mathwithbaddrawings.com/

[3] A blog that analyzes military details in fictional battles: https://acoup.blog/

Re: Ask HN: What is your favorite way to read online content?

#19

Post by tejohnso » Thu, May 28, 2020, 6:26 PM UTC

glaberficken wrote: post #7

I use pocket. It is installed by default in Firefox (my default browser). From there I save the articles I want to read. And then i read them on my Kobo eReader (which syncs pocket saved articles automatically). The perfect combo to save my eyes a few "back-lit screen hours".

I use pocket + kobo as well.

I consider my Kobo Forma the most cherished tech purchase I've made in years.

Re: Ask HN: What is your favorite way to read online content?

#20

Post by cameronbrown » Thu, May 28, 2020, 6:26 PM UTC

Earlier last year, I wrote a tool which scrapes a ton of web feeds (industry news, news about investments, cooking blogs, etc..) to my email. (shameless plug[0]). Everything gets organised with labels that fit my morning reading workflow well.

Something else I've also been practicing is not letting online reading disrupt me at work. If I ever find my concentration drifting, I use an extension which bookmarks it for later (either Google Keep or Pocket). Usually I have a nice backlog for when I'm in the reading mood.

[0]http://feedsub.com