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RSS is awesome

evanverma.com

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Re: RSS is awesome

#51

Post by glenstein »

jayd16 wrote: post #34
627467 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having restarted using rss in the past months (after probably 10+ years of not using it) i am now starting to remember why I stopped using it: lack of a personal "algorithm" that made hundreds (if not 1000s) of unread daily items to be manageable. I know part of it is on me. I need to let go, unsubscribe aggressively, etc... but this is... work? Im not a regular iOS user, but on it I have feeeeds which actually seem…

Is there still no alternative filling Google reader's void?

Google reader was simple and beautifully designed, free, and online first. There are alternatives but they sacrifice one of the three. Inoreader, the old reader, and newsblur are all pretty good but require a subscription to fully replicate Google reader.

There are various local-first phone apps, desktop apps, and self-hostable apps that are good, completely free and have comprehensive features.

There are some what I would consider bait and switch options like Flipboard and Feedly that pretend to care about RSS but layer on features unrelated to the protocol. I think you can find one that works for you.

The problem with RSS right now is not, imo, the lack of tools to do the reading, thankfully. It's more that the major vote of legitimacy previously extended by Google was revoked and prompted an unwinding from RSS as a universal form of content distribution basically across the whole internet.

Re: RSS is awesome

#52

Post by glenstein »

senectus1 wrote: post #5
k2enemy wrote: post #2

Boy do I feel old if a short, low content PSA about the existence of RSS is considered "hacker news."

I mean.. it shouldn't be controversial.. but people keep claiming rss is dead. not in my world it aint.

Definitely not dead, thank goodness. I probably read 4-5 articles a day through RSS and skim through dozens.

Even so it's no longer a de facto standard the way it used to be.

Re: RSS is awesome

#53

Post by alex1138 »

glenstein wrote: post #51
jayd16 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there still no alternative filling Google reader's void?

Google reader was simple and beautifully designed, free, and online first. There are alternatives but they sacrifice one of the three. Inoreader, the old reader, and newsblur are all pretty good but require a subscription to fully replicate Google reader. There are various local-first phone apps, desktop apps, and self-hostable apps that are good, completely free and have comprehensive features. There are some what I…

I think a company that makes products that last may actually literally be more rare than the discovery of alien life in the universe

(Who makes the incentives at Google?! Seriously)

Re: RSS is awesome

#54

Post by rifty »

To some degree this is more a knock on the state of UX on the web than a intrinsic advantage for web feeds, but my favourite thing was my ability to compact list view content feeds, categorize them, and flip between them quickly because everything has been pre-acquired. As soon as I found out I could use Youtube that way, it felt like a 10x better experience for browsing my subscriptions.

Re: RSS is awesome

#55

Post by glenstein »

geor9e wrote: post #23

Yes! I've been using RSS (feedbro reader) to de-algorithm social media for a long time now. Twitter (via nitter), Facebook (public posts only), HN, etc. It's all in a chronological RSS feed. No algorithms choosing what I see, no infinite scroll. If it's not a public post from a user I added, I don't see it. Luckily all my close friends are public-only type posters so it works. My pet conspiracy is that big tech has w…

I think your conspiracy theory is quite a natural reading of the incentives for big tech. IIRC, different iterations of Twitter, YouTube, Craigslist, Facebook, Google News, Google blog search, and even the Chrome browser had built in RSS support of various forms that were later removed or scaled back or significantly de-emphasized.

Re: RSS is awesome

#56

Post by vanc_cefepime »

ropable wrote: post #20

I'm sad that a basic description of what RSS consists of makes it onto HN. I still upvoted to help educate the kids :/ FYI FreshRSS is fairly trivial to self-host, and is a really nice option for an RSS reader app.

Preferential to Miniflux myself, but any RSS reader is better than none.

Re: RSS is awesome

#58

Post by senectus1 »

glenstein wrote: post #52
senectus1 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean.. it shouldn't be controversial.. but people keep claiming rss is dead. not in my world it aint.

Definitely not dead, thank goodness. I probably read 4-5 articles a day through RSS and skim through dozens. Even so it's no longer a de facto standard the way it used to be.

haha, I skim through about 800 a day and read dozens of them.

Every year around newyears time I trim it back, but it inevitably grows again.

Re: RSS is awesome

#59

Post by fzxu22 »

ropable wrote: post #20

I'm sad that a basic description of what RSS consists of makes it onto HN. I still upvoted to help educate the kids :/ FYI FreshRSS is fairly trivial to self-host, and is a really nice option for an RSS reader app.

+1 happy freshrss user here

Re: RSS is awesome

#60

Post by rootnod3 »

627467 wrote: post #19
user3939382 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RSS is the antidote to algorithm feeds. I’m glad for any mention of it. 90% of the tools users need were built 1970-2000 including RSS.

Having restarted using rss in the past months (after probably 10+ years of not using it) i am now starting to remember why I stopped using it: lack of a personal "algorithm" that made hundreds (if not 1000s) of unread daily items to be manageable. I know part of it is on me. I need to let go, unsubscribe aggressively, etc... but this is... work? Im not a regular iOS user, but on it I have feeeeds which actually seem…

Gnus in emacs is a good reader for that due to the scoring system in gnus.
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