Author Topic: Google Reader gone (Read 165,225 times)

phitsc · « **Reply #75 on:** June 06, 2013, 06:58 PM »

I've also settled for Feedly for the time being. Like IainB I find it inferior to Google Reader, especially its interface. It's not slow for me though. I wish it had https.

IainB · « **Reply #76 on:** June 22, 2013, 03:14 PM »

Notes from me:

Feedly: (Web-based app.) Not bad at all! Still looking like the best bet, though it takes some getting used to and is a bit kludgy - and might not be as sophisticated as GR.
QuiteRSS: (a free PC client app.) Not bad at all! Different to use, takes some getting used to. I am still playing with this. Seems to upset the cursor with sporadic movements whilst it is running, which makes the cursor jump seemingly randomly when you are typing in other applications. Annoying as all heck.
Digg: (Web-based app.) Apparently nothing publicly available that works (anyone else find that too?). Lots of hype, verbiage and news posts but nothing actually there, and apparently nothing of much use has been communicated to their mailing list of supporters (I'm on it).
Hitler was pretty annoyed: Hitler finds out Google Reader is shutting down.

sicknero · « **Reply #77 on:** June 22, 2013, 05:52 PM »

I didn't really want a browser based reader so spent a while trying out a few different ones.

RSS Owl - gorgeous GUI but requires JRE and the portable version tends to forget everything. Also slow and a bit of a cpu hog when updating reads.

QuiteRSS - Quite nice :-) I stuck with this one for a couple of weeks but although it doesn't use java I still found that it would tie up all my CPU cycles while updating.

I'm now settled on Great News which has a nice interface, enough features and is the lightest I've found so far in terms of resource usage while updating.

An honourable mention to Desktop Ticker - add whatever RSS feeds you like to it and it scrolls the headlines across your screen in news ticker form. Appearance is customisable, it can float or dock, if you hover over a headline you get more info and if you click on the headline it opens the full story. Great stuff.

Lol IainB, I should have known there'd be a Downfall parody

("Anyone who thinks social media is a valid replacement for an RSS reader leave the room now" lololololololol..)

cyberdiva · « **Reply #78 on:** June 23, 2013, 12:18 AM »

I tried Feedly but I couldn't get it to show me all my feeds, and no matter what "view" I tried, I couldn't find one that was similar to what I had (and liked) on Google Reader. Then a day or so ago, I read that FeedDemon Pro was now free. It's not browser-based, though you can read the feed links in your browser if you want to. It's free, it doesn't ask for a name or password, you just download FeedDemon 4.5 from the website and install it on your computer. I imported all my Google Reader feeds and I was good to go. So far, I'm very pleased.

johnk · « **Reply #79 on:** June 23, 2013, 12:36 AM »

FeedDemon Pro is excellent, I've been using it for years. But as mentioned earlier in this thread, it has gone free because the program is now dead. The developer has explained in some detail why the program will no longer be developed. FeedDemon now only makes sense for people who will only read their feeds on the desktop. I imagine that's now a small minority, but I may be wrong...

cyberdiva · « **Reply #80 on:** June 23, 2013, 01:01 AM »

Quote from: johnk on June 23, 2013, 12:36 AM

FeedDemon Pro is excellent, I've been using it for years. But as mentioned earlier in this thread, it has gone free because the program is now dead. The developer has explained in some detail why the program will no longer be developed. FeedDemon now only makes sense for people who will only read their feeds on the desktop. I imagine that's now a small minority, but I may be wrong...

Well, I only read Google Reader on my desktop, and I expect I'll do the same thing with FeedDemon. I guess I'll continue to pay attention to what other RSS Readers are available, but so far I'm happy with FeedDemon.

johnk · « **Reply #81 on:** June 23, 2013, 01:52 AM »

Quote from: cyberdiva on June 23, 2013, 01:01 AM

Well, I only read Google Reader on my desktop, and I expect I'll do the same thing with FeedDemon.

I think you've made a good choice. If I only read my RSS feeds on the desktop, I'd certainly stick with FeedDemon. I'm still testing Google Reader alternatives, currently using Feedbin, syncing with Press on Android, but I'm keeping an eye out in case something better comes along. Digg Reader beta launches on Wednesday...

IainB · « **Reply #82 on:** June 23, 2013, 07:21 AM »

Quote from: sicknero on June 22, 2013, 05:52 PM

...("Anyone who thinks social media is a valid replacement for an RSS reader leave the room now" lololololololol..)

Yes, it's quite clever, and most apposite.

IainB · « **Reply #83 on:** June 23, 2013, 08:18 AM »

Quote from: johnk on June 06, 2013, 02:15 PM

.The reason I dismissed Feedly is that it's impossible to change ..the article background colour. It's always white, no matter what theme you choose, and no amount of playing with userContent.css or the Greasemonkey script could change that...

I skipped over that statement before and only just noticed it today. It is easy to get the Feedly background changed to whatever you want - if you use Firefox with the NoSquint add-on.
Look at my example and comparison above: Re: Google Reader gone

Jibz · « **Reply #84 on:** June 23, 2013, 10:07 AM »

My concern with Feedly is that they are pulling in as many people as possible without telling them exactly how they will be monetizing the service after google reader shuts down. They have said it will be a freemium thing where certain features will be available only on a subscription, but what features? At least some of the others have the premium stuff in place already, I fear some people will be surprised once Feedly implements this.

I love FeedDemon, and was a registered user of a previous version. It really is one of the most slick desktop clients. But since it's end-of-life'd, it probably won't be updated to support whatever comes down the road.

I imported all my feeds to RSSOwl for a start, which works okay, and then I will probably see what features end up in Feedly premium and see if it's worth it. I would personally prefer a web based reader.

johnk · « **Reply #85 on:** June 23, 2013, 11:40 AM »

Quote from: IainB on June 23, 2013, 08:18 AM

It is easy to get the Feedly background changed to whatever you want - if you use Firefox with the NoSquint add-on.

Thanks for that. I've never come across NoSquint before. I'll have a play.

IainB · « **Reply #86 on:** June 23, 2013, 12:11 PM »

Quote from: Jibz on June 23, 2013, 10:07 AM

My concern with Feedly is that they are pulling in as many people as possible without telling them exactly how they will be monetizing the service after google reader shuts down. ...

The correct term for this might "be bait and switch". We shall see.

cyberdiva · « **Reply #87 on:** June 23, 2013, 01:40 PM »

Quote from: Jibz on June 23, 2013, 10:07 AM

I love FeedDemon, and was a registered user of a previous version. It really is one of the most slick desktop clients. But since it's end-of-life'd, it probably won't be updated to support whatever comes down the road.

I have relatively simple requirements for an RSS reader, and most of the bells and whistles that I've seen in other readers do not interest me. But still, I am concerned about FeedDemon's ability to deal with "whatever comes down the road." That's why I will continue to keep my eyes open and read helpful threads like this one. For now, though, FeedDemon seems more than capable of handling what I need.

IainB · « **Reply #88 on:** June 24, 2013, 03:32 AM »

Here's a copy of my RSS readers - Evaluation PMI notes as at 2013-06-24. (Image copy of a OneNotes table.)
(Hope it's of help/use. Click to enlarge.)
[attachthumb=#]

IainB · « **Reply #89 on:** June 24, 2013, 12:59 PM »

I didn't know about this:
AOL Launches Google Reader Replacement Just In Time For Google Reader’s Shutdown [Updates]
Trialling it now...

cyberdiva · « **Reply #90 on:** June 24, 2013, 01:25 PM »

Thanks very much, Iain. I found your chart helpful, and I'm glad to know about AOL Reader as well.

mwb1100 · « **Reply #91 on:** June 24, 2013, 05:40 PM »

Another interesting development is http://www.reedah.com who have reimplemented Google Reader's API to some extent. If you can configure your reader to pointer to reedah.com instead of google.com for it's RSS API access, it's supposed to be able to provide the synching that google used to provide.

40hz · « **Reply #92 on:** June 24, 2013, 06:09 PM »

I keep looking at this article and thinking "Hmm...maybe....just maybe when a get some free time."

It doesn't look like it's that big a chore. Maybe not exactly a freshman server project. But I'm sure it's easily within the technical cabilities of many DoCo members.

Here's another article on doing the same.

Hmm...maybe...just maybe....

wraith808 · « **Reply #93 on:** June 24, 2013, 06:31 PM »

Someone else tried that... and posted the results here somewhere, I think...

40hz · « **Reply #94 on:** June 24, 2013, 07:15 PM »

Quote from: wraith808 on June 24, 2013, 06:31 PM

Someone else tried that... and posted the results here somewhere, I think...

The only reference I could find to it was this post. And this was all that was said about TinyTiny RSS:

Quote

I concluded in an earlier post that hosting your own reader was the only rational solution. But although I have tried my best to like both Tiny Tiny RSS and Fever, neither gives me everything I want.

I ruled out TTRSS quickly. It just seemed a bit clunky to me...

Does that constitute an actual try I wonder?

wraith808 · « **Reply #95 on:** June 24, 2013, 07:24 PM »

Well played, and valid point

johnk · « **Reply #96 on:** June 24, 2013, 08:15 PM »

Quote from: 40hz on June 24, 2013, 07:15 PM

Quote from: wraith808 on June 24, 2013, 06:31 PM
Someone else tried that... and posted the results here somewhere, I think...
The only reference I could find to it was this post. And this was all that was said about TinyTiny RSS:
Quote
I concluded in an earlier post that hosting your own reader was the only rational solution. But although I have tried my best to like both Tiny Tiny RSS and Fever, neither gives me everything I want.
I ruled out TTRSS quickly. It just seemed a bit clunky to me...
Does that constitute an actual try I wonder?

Okay, admittedly that was an unhelpful summary of my experience. To elaborate slightly: although TT-RSS has been around a long time, it still feels a bit beta-ish to me. The interface is not slick, but it does work. It is slow and clunky in use compared to others I have used (and I have used many in the last couple of months). For example, TT-RSS refreshes and reloads were very slow compared to Fever, which I was self-hosting at the same time on the same server.

Fever, was better in almost all respects. Easier to install (much easier), and an elegant interface that is a pleasure to use, and far quicker in use. I only ruled out Fever because the basic UI design is not as good in practice as a more traditional three-column interface, if you read large volumes of material on a daily basis. That's the only area where TT-RSS was better. But overall, if you want a basic three-column web-based RSS reader, in my opinion Feedbin is far better than TT-RSS.

I hope that's more helpful.

40hz · « **Reply #97 on:** June 24, 2013, 10:02 PM »

Quote from: johnk on June 24, 2013, 08:15 PM

I hope that's more helpful.

Quite a bit & thx!

From your initial remark I thought that maybe you had merely given it a quick glance and decided it wasn't the ticket.

Actually, it's not the web interface I'm that interested in. What I really want is something that will take a large and regularly updated feed list and cache it locally on my personal network and make it available to all the machines connected to it.

The problem with things like Fever isn't so much what they don't do as it is what they try to do. I have zero use for 'social' anything. And I have no patience with things that try to make guesses about what I want or need to see. Maybe that's more because I've developed a rapid skimming technique perfectly suited to my personal requirements so I don't need an app to "help" me with that part.

johnk · « **Reply #98 on:** June 24, 2013, 10:20 PM »

Quote from: 40hz on June 24, 2013, 10:02 PM

The problem with things like Fever isn't so much what they don't do as it is what they try to do. I have zero use for 'social' anything.

I think I mentioned this before: although the Fever web site concentrates heavily on its "Sparks" feature (the ranking system it uses for "hot" stories), it is very easy to ignore this feature. If you don't put any feeds in the Sparks category, Fever behaves like any other RSS reader -- it's just folders and feeds. Self-hosted options are limited, so if you think the interface would suit you, it's worth a try. Keyboard navigation works well. The only problem is that there is no trial version.

IainB · « **Reply #99 on:** June 25, 2013, 01:06 AM »

I was just reviewing some old RSS feeds via AOL Reader (which I am trialling), when I spotted this bloggerindraft blogpost from November 2011:
Blogger’s Brand New Google+ Page
(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)

Quote

Earlier this week, the Google+ team launched Pages, a new way for you to keep up-to-date with your interests and build relationships with the people who share them. Today, the Blogger team is launching our own Google+ Page, and we’d like to invite you to add us to one of your circles.

By adding Blogger's Page in one of your circles, you'll start seeing updates from the Blogger team in your Google+ stream. You’ll also have the opportunity to engage with other bloggers by writing comments on the posts. Here's a quick list of what to expect:
•Product news and announcements
•Video Hangouts with the Blogger team
•Spotlights on Blogger users and their blogs
•Pro tips from the Blogger team and other users

Lastly, be sure to mention +Blogger when you share your own tips -- if we come across something particularly helpful, we may reshare it. See you on Google+! Posted by Lisa Ding, Community Manager
Posted 10th November 2011 by A Googler

[rant]
The thing is, I and probably tens of thousands of other people never wanted Google's ~~"exciting"~~ stupid and pointless-for-users proprietary Google+ in the first place, and resented their puerile attempts to coerce us to use it as our "social notworking tool of choice", to make the coffee or whatever, and to read all of our newsfeeds - rather than using Google Reader for RSS (as we currently do).

So what did Google do? Well, apparently, one of the clever things they have done is to take away Google Reader - thus making one less reason for not using Google+. Smart, eh? I presume this could make some kind of sense if you were absolutely desperate to create/force more eyeballs onto the proprietary Google+ feeds, if only to avoid the marketer's nightmare of a Second Wave, which could permanently tsunami your career prospects at Google.
So, if you wanted some real reasons (as opposed to all the stupid fibs and prevarication) for killing off Google Reader, then one could probably be that it had to be sacrificed at the alter of Google+ - a cuckoo project that probably "cannot" (i.e., must not) fail.

The histories of IT organisations are littered with the corpses of such "cannot fail" projects, and their inventors. The deciding factor is not how strongly some idiot executive insists - beyond all reason - that the experiment must work, but when business reality takes over and someone sane counts the costs and cost-benefits, and then pulls the plug.
Here is a picture of an approach recommended by the NZ SSC (State Services Commission) for scrutinising and aborting runaway cost projects.
(Notional project cost curve showing funding, and termination points when accepted costs are exceeded.)

[attach]