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Google Kills Its RSS Subscription Browser Extension Too

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Re: Google Kills Its RSS Subscription Browser Extension Too

#131
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can have an RSS feed that doesn't include the full post, just a title and maybe the first sentence or two. A lot of sites do that (Salon.com comes to mind immediately).

But that's also not what I want. I want people to come check regularly (or not) if something is new. That's a way to create loyal visitors.

If you have amazing updates daily, I might do that. If I'm seeing the same thing I read a week ago 90% of the time, and I can't have a feed reader ping me when there's a reason to come back, forget it.

Re: Google Kills Its RSS Subscription Browser Extension Too

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why these changes make you switch from Chrome to Firefox. There appears to be a really prevalent attitude here on HN that you can either really love or really hate a company. If you like it, you use all their stuff. When the switch in your mind flips and you know you must instantly start hating them, it means you must stop using every instance of their software, whether it's related or not to whate…

Chrome is created by an Ad company so that they can make more money selling Ads. People are willing to overlook this fact because they trust that Google wont put it's own desire to make profit over keeping the web open. People are losing the trust that this is the case. If somebody comes up with some new technology that makes the web better in some way, but also means it's more difficult or impossible to target adver…

> Chrome is created by an Ad company so that they can make more money selling Ads.

Funny. I thought their goal was to sell Chromebooks. :X

Re: Google Kills Its RSS Subscription Browser Extension Too

#133
post #116
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whatever you may feel about NaCl, Microsoft, Apple and Mozilla don't think it's good. Microsoft and Apple have very obvious reasons to avoid supporting NaCl, whatever they think of it--it is the last step in nullifying the relevance of Operating Systems. A browser that runs code at native speed is an operating system, fullstop. Mozilla is, as far as I can tell, just doing that same overly-idealist thing that Debian…

> A browser that runs code at native speed is an operating system, fullstop. You could give some people a stroke with that statement. They probably would mind that a supposedly sandboxed browser is fully controlling the hardware.

Chrome OS?

Re: Google Kills Its RSS Subscription Browser Extension Too

#134
post #16

I don't understand what people use to see new information from multiple websites at once if they aren't using RSS. Are they actually visiting 10 or 20 websites a day manually? Do "normal" users stick to just a few websites?

I visit sites manually, and the overhead of doing so is one of the ways I maintain self-control over being overly consumerist about my information. I didn't actually get any benefit from using an RSS reader 5 years ago and I don't think I'd really get much benefit today.

Re: Google Kills Its RSS Subscription Browser Extension Too

#135

Twitter has disabled RSS this month too. Is RSS too open for the big players?

No they didn't. Still works: https://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline.rss?screen_... They have said they're planning to get rid of it sometime soon, though. Sucks for people like me who used Google Reader to keep track of Twitter RSS feeds, ha. Google Reader is really easy to replace, at least. I'm much more upset about Twitter.

What exactly is it about Twitter that's indispensable for you?

Re: Google Kills Its RSS Subscription Browser Extension Too

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chrome is created by an Ad company so that they can make more money selling Ads. People are willing to overlook this fact because they trust that Google wont put it's own desire to make profit over keeping the web open. People are losing the trust that this is the case. If somebody comes up with some new technology that makes the web better in some way, but also means it's more difficult or impossible to target adver…

> Chrome is created by an Ad company so that they can make more money selling Ads. Funny. I thought their goal was to sell Chromebooks. :X

Chromebooks are just a means to an end: ever more ad impressions.

Re: Google Kills Its RSS Subscription Browser Extension Too

#137

I'm one tinfoil hat away from believing this isn't just about discontinuing unprofitable products, but a concerted effort to kill off support for open standards (RSS, CalDAV, what's next?) and turning the Google universe into a Facebook/Apple style walled garden called Google+. Evil plan or not, the days of Google as the champion of the open web are over.

This is actually the final step for me. I've been an avid Google fan since the early days. I use all the Google services, I use Chrome religiously, I convince family/friends to switch to Chrome from IE, and I've always been convinced Google is the one we're supposed to look up to for how things should be done. Yeah they've made mistakes, and G+ is a clusterfuck of brilliant talent thrown down a horrible path of close…

Slightly OT, but what do you find so bad about the G+ photo experience?

Re: Google Kills Its RSS Subscription Browser Extension Too

#138
post #16

I don't understand what people use to see new information from multiple websites at once if they aren't using RSS. Are they actually visiting 10 or 20 websites a day manually? Do "normal" users stick to just a few websites?

My wife just starts typing the name of the site she wants from memory and the browser auto-completes it. No readers, no bookmarks. I would guess quite a lot of people browse the web this way.

Re: Google Kills Its RSS Subscription Browser Extension Too

#139
As I noted recently, Google Currents is an Android application which uses RSS. And it is a product which has been getting updates, and is available at the Play Store here:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...

So if people think Google is getting out of the RSS business, here's a counter-example. Personally, this is how I browse my favorite news/blog sites each morning, looking for interesting content (which can be easily shared via G+ or other any other link sharing service; unlike iOS, it's easy for any Android application, including Google Currents, to share content with other Android applications, whether it be G+, or Evernote, or Digg, etc.)

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