What's the Best RSS Reader Not Named Google Reader?

Hugh Pickens writes writes "The news that that Google is killing off Google Reader in their annual spring cleaning means hordes of abandoned RSS users will need a new home to get their news fix before July 1, 2013. Sure, Google Reader may not have been the most beautifully designed product to come out of Mountain View, Calif., but it sure was convenient. And now that it's going away, it's evident just how valuable it has been. 'It's a tough question that's not unlike asking what's the best planet to live on not named Earth or the best thing to breathe not named air,' writes Casey Chan. 'Google Reader was that obvious a choice.' So what's the best RSS reader not named Google Reader? Is it Reeder? Or NetNewsWire? Maybe Feedly? Or should we all just ditch RSS and get with Twitter?" Personally, I've taken a liking to Akregator on my desktop and Sparse RSS on my phone (syncing done woefully manually by exporting the list of feeds from my desktop reader and importing into the phone reader now and then). Update: 03/14 14:43 GMT by T : Depending on your aesthetics and platform of choice, you might like one of these four options, too.

Comments

Keeping feeds separate

[93 Escort Wagon]

Maybe I use RSS feeds differently than other people; but I've had trouble finding a decent reader that allows you to look at your feeds separately (on my iPad anyway - Firefox and Safari do fine if I'm on my desktop). Apparently most people like all the data all mixed in together, but I am generally reading RSS to find more targeted info - new Netflix streamable movies, for example.

Re:Keeping feeds separate

[GameboyRMH]

In Google Reader you can do that, you just click on the feed you want to view in the "Subscriptions" list on the left instead of "All items" which mixes them all together.

But it's fun to mix the satire news with the real news and guess which is which.

Tiny Tiny RSS

[DarkSkiez]

Run your own google reader:

tt-rss.org

Netvibes

[unfortunateson]

I've been using Netvibes for several years now, and am mostly pleased, partly due to its "widget" mode, which lets me separate posts by feed rather than seeing them piled up by time. It will aggregate facebook, twitter, email (subject lines only), and has various widgets for just about anything: google news searches, ebay bids/sales, stock tracking, etc.

It's mobile interface, however, has some serious flaws: it reports the wrong feed name when you select a post (I think it's showing the one you previously selected), and some feeds don't display at all (TechCrunch and MAKE, I'm looking at you) -- it might just be a matter of selecting a different version of the feed, though.

Re:Netvibes

[ynp7]

I'd pay a lot more than $36/year for Google Reader. Pretty much hating all of the alternatives though. Really, is it so fucking hard to have a list of feeds on one side and a list of article headlines that expand to show the full text when clicked on the other?

Have your own server? Tiny Tiny RSS

[WoodburyMan]

So Google, you're shutting down Google Reader? Yeah, well... I'm gonna go build my own Web-Based RSS Reader with blackjack and hookers. In fact, forget the RSS Reader! I have been a avid Google Reader user for 3-4+ years. I check it every break at work and usually first thing in the morning on my Tablet and at night before I go to bed. Love it. After hearing this, EVERY other web based RSS / Reader site was slammed and down. Then I thought... what if any of those services just randomly *poof* overnight went offline, like Google Reader, but without notice? Having my own shared server, I looked into PHP / MySQL solutions. So far Tiny Tiny RSS Reader Wins out. http://tt-rss.org/ Set up and running in 20 minutes. Being a shared server I couldn't run daemons so I had to use a cron job to have it update the feeds every 10 minutes but it works great so far for the last 12 hours.

Re:Feedly looks ok

[jaymz666]

I need something that is cross machine compatible, linking my read/unread to a single machine isn't fun

If applicable: host it yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

Self-hosting solutions are available, will never get canned in this manner, and are highly customizable. But, of course, require a place to host it.

I've tried both Tiny Tiny RSS and RSSLounge before in an attempt to rid myself of the Google Reader addiction, but found them both lacking in some respects every time. Since Google Reader is disappearing though, I made a new attempt this morning.

RSSLounge seems to have been abandoned a year or two ago, but perhaps it was stable enough (RSS aggregation is not nuclear science).

Tiny Tiny RSS have some in my eyes quite horrible default settings, especially coming from Google Reader. The good news, however, is that it is configurable to mimic Google Reader quite closely. With some work with custom CSS rules it is quite close at a first glance.

My Tiny Tiny RSS configuration:

• Enable "Automatically expand articles in combined mode"
• Enable "Combined feed display"
• Long date format: "Y-m-d H:i"
• Short date format: "Y-m-d H:i"
• My custom RSS

Last time I installed it on Debian I ran into enough caveats that it led me to write a guide for others to install it, but since then it has been included in the unstable repository. To install it, some manual work was still needed, though:

• sudo aptitude install tt-rss libphp-simplepie #the second package is a correct dependency now, bug fixed very recently, so that should no longer be needed.
• sudo vi /usr/share/tt-rss/www/config.php #Enter server URL. I also set SINGLE_USER_MODE=true per preference.
• ln -s ../conf-available/50-tt-rss.conf /etc/apache2/conf.d #A bit weird by the Debian package to not put it directly in conf.d/
• sudo vi tt-rss.local #This was for my local configuration. Needed a entry for Apache to give access to a directory outside of DocumentRoot. I also locked it to localhost access per preference.
• sudo service apache2 reload
• sudo vi /etc/default/tt-rss #Set DISABLED=0 to be able to start the service.
• sudo service tt-rss start #Hopefully the aggregator will start fetching feeds.

Then go to http://localhost/tt-rss and start configuring. All subscriptions can be exported from Google Reader and imported in Tiny Tiny RSS, keeping dirctory structure intact.

I'll try to migrate fully to this solution now that Google apparently no longer wants my traffic :-) . I'd say I probably use Reader the most of all Google's services, including Search, Gmail, Youtube, etc., so the decision to can it is quite strange from my personal view.

Re:Feedly looks ok

[interkin3tic]

I was turned off of theoldreader because I went to the page, and... SOCIAL SOCIAL SOCIAL MEDIA!!! See what your friends are reading! Sign in with facebook and goole plus and twitter and myspace!

I use RSS feeds mainly for research journals to watch for relevant papers as they come out. And... er... webcomics. Why the hell would I care to include my friends on either one of those? My friends are idiots. If I find a particular journal article relevant to them (or funny webcomic), I can post it to one of those various services.

Why does it seem like every RSS reader out there is trying to get me to merge it with facebook?

Step 1: Make a website that does something
Step 2: Integrate social media
Step 3: ???
Step 4: PROFIT!!!

I try to avoid companies that seem to have that plan.

Multiple devices ?

[Pascal Sartoretti]

What I like (or liked...) about Google Reader was that I could read some things at home on my Mac, some other at work on my PC and some others in between on mobile phone, and that the "read" status is synchronized.

I am ready to switch to anything else, as long as I can keep on reading stuff from everywhere. I am ready to install client applications.

Any idea ?

Re:Feedly isn't perfect but it works everywhere

[LihTox]

Yes, why DOES Feedly need an extension to work? I can see where an extension might make it more *useful*, but the basic functionality doesn't need it.

Re:Feedly looks ok

[apoc.famine]

This has been a pet peeve of mine for ages now as well. However, this particular instance is what convinced me to finally get off my ass and do what I've been meaning to do for about 2 years now:

1) New Gmail account
2) Fake Facebook account
3) Fake Twitter account
4) Use these for every sign-in thing on all the stupid websites that have a boner for social media.

These accounts will never have friends. They won't have any followers to spam. "Will you allow us to post to your feed?" 'Sure. Even I will never ever see it.' I'm happily experimenting with a couple news readers now despite their asinine requirement that I sign in or otherwise attach one of the above.