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Google Reader Alternatives

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Re: Google Reader Alternatives

#32
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?

Re: Google Reader Alternatives

#33

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.

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.

Re: Google Reader Alternatives

#34

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.

looking for a simple alternative I found http://bazqux.com/ . You do have to pay for it (That was one of my requirements - that might be a barrier for some)

OMG, thanks. Finally a reader as fast as Google reader.

Re: Google Reader Alternatives

#35

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.

> Newsblur comes closest for me so far

Newsblur is the opposite of what I want. I want consistent typography, and much less interface, and a google reader API compatible service so I can continue to use things like Reeder. Newsblur highlights everything but the text.

I really hope the people behind Reeder build a backend and web frontend before Google Reader goes away.

Re: Google Reader Alternatives

#36
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried it and found it quite reasonable, even running it from my desktop . Is it as fast as Google Reader? Not quite, but it's not slow enough to be annoying, and certainly not "incredibly slow". Much easier to install than Newsblur. Disclaimer: I'm a sysadmin, not a developer. AMD 2 core 5600+, 8GB, one spinning iron disk with an SSD cache via flashcache, Debian stable, Postgres and Apache and PHP as Debian provide…

For me it was slow enough to be annoying. Though I only installed it local (Windows) on XAMPP and not on my VPS. But considering that my machine isn't too weak (i3, 16gb ram, SSD) I expected more. Pretty much every click took 1-2 seconds.

I'm running a 6 year old fork of tt-rss on a machine w/ specs that are too embarrassing to post and I get reasonable performance. I use a Postgres back-end and I spent some time tweaking indexes to get it to perform better. I haven't kept up with the mainline tt-rss distribution-- perhaps it's become crufted-up. The older releases definitely could work well even on modest hardware.

Re: Google Reader Alternatives

#37
post #6

I'm pretty happy with 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 P…

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.

Re: Google Reader Alternatives

#38
post #6

I'm pretty happy with 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 P…

Google Listen is Very Limit Podcast Player. After i Discovery beyondpod, i never use Lister aging.

http://www.beyondpod.com/Android/

Beyondpod sync with Google Reader too. And i will miss this function.

Re: Google Reader Alternatives

#39
post #32

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 be…

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.

Re: Google Reader Alternatives

#40
post #39
post #32

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 be…

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.

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.
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