Show HN: My all-nighter project to find the best Google Reader alternative

http://www.replacereader.com/

by ashamedlion • 13 years ago

175 72 13 years ago

lowmagnet• 13 years ago

Nice stuff, I voted for Fever, even though it has some usability issues.

nwh• 13 years ago

The results it pulls together aren't stellar, and the DRM (if you could call it that) makes me ridiculously uncomfortable too.

afx2in• 13 years ago

i like flipboard the best, but it still needs google reader for my rss feeds...

lucaspiller• 13 years ago

Love the CSS animation :D

themgt• 13 years ago

Very nice! I'd really like if you could mark which ones are available open source to run yourself.

ronbo• 13 years ago

its nice - but you might want to just mine the twitters mentioning these sites to get a bit more content.

tutuca• 13 years ago

Made me learn about http://www.feedly.com/ which looks really nice.

brianwillis• 13 years ago

Nice touch with the bobbing ship on the side there.

charlieok• 13 years ago

It's worth separating clients from servers, and noting which clients can sync with which servers.

xpose2000• 13 years ago

Well done. This site was worth the work, even if it will be a short lived project.

I voted for feedly. Those guys also promised a smooth transition once google reader shuts down. Not sure what else you could want.

ktrgardiner• 13 years ago

But it's certainly a format which can be expanded upon and applied to the recommending of any number of things.

loire280• 13 years ago

This is a great idea, but I think the rush to find an alternative is premature - there's going to be a huge shift in the RSS reader landscape over the next few months, and the best alternative may not even be announced yet.

icebraining• 13 years ago

Switching an RSS reader isn't (or shouldn't be) particularly onerous, so there's really no reason to avoid switching even if a new one comes later.

bochoh• 13 years ago

This looks great. A few animated fish and/or bubbles down towards the bottom of the list could break up the monotony of that long list. (Or even let the ship sink slowly as the ready scrolls down.)

mikemoka• 13 years ago

very nice, I also suggest http://alternativeto.net/software/google-reader/?platform=on...

cwp• 13 years ago

This is great! There is one thing missing though. I tried to subscribe to the site in Reader and it couldn't find a feed. Could you?

asdstuff• 13 years ago

i just found out, i can import my feeds to yandex.com's reader.

fast, minimal interface without any bullshit.

tempestn2• 13 years ago

Does Feedly have a web-based client? I'm looking for something to recommend to users at www.searchtempest.com. Many of them have never used (or even heard of) RSS before, so simplicity is key.

wubbfindel• 13 years ago

They have an "in-browser" client, but I think you may have to install the correct extension for it to work. Check out www.feedly.com.

tempestn2• 13 years ago

Ya, I did. Was hoping I'd missed it somehow. Looks like it's just Chrome, Firefox, iOS and Android. Great for you or I, but not for many of my users unfortunately.

ajtaylor• 13 years ago

I'm getting an Internal Server Error. :(

ashamedlion5• 13 years ago

Sorry, lots of traffic. If you refresh a couple times, it usually comes back :)

ufo• 13 years ago

My problem right now is not getting a list of names of popular feed readers - I can already see that by just browsing any of the many comment threads that have popped up on the internet where people bring up their favourite alternative.

What I really need is something to help me make a decision, by comparing what features does each reader support and so on. How much does it cost? Can I see my read in multiple devices? Does it work on smartphones? Can I share links with people? etc...

ashamedlion5• 13 years ago

We are most likely going to be adding this. It was in the original plan, but we wanted to get something out first.

mr_penguin2• 13 years ago

Agreed; ideally a comparison against all of greaders existing features to make it easier so that you could select which greader features you're using and get a list of relevant matching options.

colbyh• 13 years ago

Nitpicking I know but reusing the Google Reader favicon actually caused me confusion for a second. Cool idea though, and way more interesting than what I did last night!

Anyone complaining about "the RSS landscape changingblah blah blah" must really hate fun. Someone did this in a night to address an immediate problem and probably had a blast doing it, let the guy (girl?) enjoy the fruit of their labor.

jsmeaton5• 13 years ago

Am I the only one who just wants a list of updated articles and possibly an unread count? I don't want social in my RSS. I don't want to "discover" feeds. I don't want to be told what to read. I don't want to follow people.

For me, the whole point of RSS is that I find a site I like, I add it to my list, and I'm told when there's a new article.

I've tried several alternatives in the last 24 hours, and most of them ignore my actual feeds and give me a whole lot of machine learned articles I couldn't care less about.

It's not always the topic that's interesting, it's the writing style, or some kind of imaginary connection I've made with the site or author.

If I want to 'discover' articles, I'll browse HN or Reddit. If it's something I think I'll want to keep updated about, that's when I add it to my RSS.

dstroot3• 13 years ago

Absolutely 100% spot on. Amen!

robotmay• 13 years ago

This is what I want too, and that's why I'm gonna take a stab at building my own. I don't really want to share an article about spoon carving, but hot damn do I want to read it.

jsmeaton5• 13 years ago

If there was a scratch your own itch project, I believe this is it for me.

I was disappointed to learn iGoogle was closing down, as that was my primary interface to Google Reader. There are alternatives to IG (NetVibes; which is sort of horrible), but you can't present feeds as a widget.

So yes, I believe I'll give RSS Reading a crack, and create a NetVibes widget, and see if I can get exactly back to where I was before these spring cleaning announcements.

arbitrarywords• 13 years ago

If you solve this problem can you please reply to your comment with the solution. Thanks.

czervik• 13 years ago

You are not alone. I'm also insta turned off by any reader replacement that wants access to my google account. Seriously, I'm supposed to give you access to my friggin contacts just to try your service?! I just want to read my feeds and sync across devices.

sangupta• 13 years ago

You may want to try http://multiplx.com and create a password with any of your email ids - social authentication is purely optional.

tomasr• 13 years ago

If you find that, let us know. Many of us feel very much the same way (which is why I loved the old greader. new reader ain't as good, but still got the job done... sort of)

tr4656• 13 years ago

Agreed. I'm thinking of paying for Fever just so I can get an reader but haven't heard of many people using it before.

abrowne• 13 years ago

I want that, and I want it in oldest-first order. So many of the alternatives I've tried only offer newest first!

Gormo• 13 years ago

I've never used Google Reader for just these very reasons, and have been using Thunderbird for several years, even though Thunderbird is hardly ideal. The disadvantages of existing web-based readers really outweigh the one feature that's really superior in web-based clients, that being ubiquitous synchronization.

What I'd love to see in a reader:

* Email-like interface

* Custom folder hierarchy, allowing filtering of specific feeds into specific folders.

* A "unified inbox" that shows new items from all feeds, outside the normal folder hierarchy.

* Highly customizable text themes, allowing font, size, and color defaults to be easily configured without having to write custom CSS.

* Automatic retrieval of the full article for RSS items that don't include full text, parsed through a readable/readability-like filter, conforming to the user's defined text theme.

* Automatic retrieval of the comments feed for each article, to be displayed in a separate pane or tab.

* Integrated streaming of audio and video for podcast feeds, with playback positions remembered from session to session.

* No feed recommendations, no integrated "feed gallery", no integration with any external sites - especially Facebook; at most, "share link" buttons for individual sites that can be customized and disabled individually by the user (so, e.g., I could optionally add a button to my UI for posting the artice to HN or reddit).

I'd be willing to pay for a client that had this featureset.

fakeer3• 13 years ago

- Use a client that supports RSS.

- Sync your data with Dropbox and use it on other machines.

FeedHQ.org (Open Source) looks like a fine alternative but I am not sure what it supports yet in terms of your needs. Like they do have list, unread counts, tags(categories). Well, they have support read it later(which you said you don't want, maybe - but it's not that social :P)

Hell, even I do not want a social service or another GR or maybe not another free service that will go kaput anyday.

I guess FeedHQ guys have a real chance here with NewsBlur too cluttered and too slow.

jsmeaton5• 13 years ago

FeedHQ seems very close to what I want, unfortunately it's throwing a 500 error when importing my subscriptions. I'll give it a more closer look later, thanks for that.

Edit: and it's open source. This definitely seems like a good base to start from if it doesn't fit my needs.

DanielRibeiro• 13 years ago

You can also use IFTTT, and let it put on your dropbox account. I used that for Twitter, until they shut IFTTT's account (Zapier (YC S12) still works, but it is paid).

The cool thing about this is that you get search. If only there was a web interface that would use my dropbox account, and allow me to mark as read, search and star things...

aaronbrethorst2• 13 years ago

No, that's exactly what I want. Luckily, I'm building exactly that, but it's gonna cost you money[1].

Reason being is that RSS is 'dead'. I will never be able to attract funding for what I'm building, and to be able to maintain, extend, update and generally give it the love it'll need, it will need to support me, at least part time.

If you're interested in learning more about what I'm up to, I have a Launchrock page up at http://signup.viafeeds.com. The iOS screenshot was taken from my phone. The software is real, and very intentionally minimal.

I was expecting to have at least another few months of dev time before Google Reader shut down. The announcement yesterday caught me by surprise, and I tossed up the signup page as a response. Wish I'd had more time...

[1] A nominal amount to be sure, along the lines of that proverbial Starbucks beverage per month, but it definitely won't be free.

jsmeaton5• 13 years ago

Is it mainly app or web based? I'm not interested in apps generally.

martinp• 13 years ago

This is exactly what I want. I know what I want to read, I don't need some algorithm telling me what I might like.

All my feeds are carefully chosen based on site reputation, article quality, journalism quality and my of course my interests. When I want a little bit of everything, I just browse HN (often from Reader).

carey• 13 years ago

I don’t know why the Reader on WordPress.com isn’t mentioned more often. It looks just right for a small, carefully chosen set of subscriptions.

dirkk0• 13 years ago

exactly.

ScottWhigham• 13 years ago

FeedDemon does exactly what you mention. I've used it for a long time and tried many alternatives. FD just does what you ask it to and nothing more. It's a shame that, when Google Reader shut down, Nick decided to kill it.

ldh• 13 years ago

The differentiating feature of Reader for me was that I could have extremely good discussions around various items with a circle of friends and friends-of-friends. I'm not as interested in algorithmically-suggested items, but if somebody whose taste I appreciate has something to say about an item I'd like to be able to discuss that. And that small circle of people has a larger signal-to-noise ratio for me than HN or Reddit comments.

So I think the appeal of a minimal social component in an RSS reader is not adding to the already-unmanageable deluge of information, but to add richness and depth to the existing pool.

rssident• 13 years ago

Try http://rssident.com

I built it for many of the reasons you stated. I also wanted to be able to do specific kinds of search (All craigslist telecommute Java jobs in the US -- http://rssident.com/mash/?t=job&e=telecommute).

It still needs a lot of work but I plan to keep it relatively simple and useful.

Fizzer• 13 years ago

This isn't how you go about finding which is the best. This is how you go about finding which is the most popular.

Voting is inherently skewed towards popularity, which is not always correlated with quality.

From the headline, I had assumed you spent all night learning the ins and outs of every option and were going to present your findings. I was disappointed to find this was just a poll.

mr_penguin2• 13 years ago

I was expecting a feature comparison as well. Does anyone know where one is available?

There are a lot of overlapping features to consider depending on individual usage. Features like tagging, cross platform and mobile, social, scaleability, web/self hosted, price will all be a important factors for most trying to make a decision.

ashamedlion5• 13 years ago

Indeed, this is actually our eventual goal. The idea was to get something out, aggregate the most exhaustive list of RSS readers and then add the comparison details. It takes time!

dstroot3• 13 years ago

How are you guys processing the tweets to show the results? Would love to know more about that.

jbackus2• 13 years ago

We're using Ruby, Sinatra, HTTParty, Twitter Search API, Postgres, and Unicorn on a Heroku instance. Basically requesting the page pulls recent tweets from twitter matching the search '#replacereader', those tweets are checked against the DB to prevent dupe counting or multiple votes from one account, and new votes are added accordingly. Vote counts along with our list of replacements are pulled from the database and passed to a haml view, and unicorn caches page requests (including DB lookups and Twitter lookups) for 60 seconds to prevent exceeding APIs or Heroku's Postgres database limits.

dstroot3• 13 years ago

THANKS!

latraveler2• 13 years ago

Feedly looks cool and all, but how do I add a feed? I spent 2 minutes and still can't figure it out.

mmahemoff• 13 years ago

Chuffed to be included here, thanks! Would you mind switching the tag to #PlayerFM as a lot of Twitter clients will treat the "." incorrectly.

ashamedlion5• 13 years ago

Alright, fixed it!

latraveler2• 13 years ago

Does anyone know how a good solution to this.

http://superuser.com/questions/566201/google-reader-export-i...

3amOpsGuy• 13 years ago

Really impressed with the aesthetics, especially for such a quick turnaround. Had a peek under the covers and it appears to be well done there too.

Top marks in my book.

jbackus2• 13 years ago

Thank you! I threw together the backbone action under the hood, all credit goes to Alain for the awesome design. We're pretty sure this post would have about 3 upvotes had it not been for the bobbing ship.

mattmcknight• 13 years ago

Surprised Feedly is so highly ranked. I tried it out after the last set of Google Reader changes and deleted it after about a week. The mobile app is really awful for skimming lots of content and is too focused on presenting a newspaper like layout. It's all pictures...

gnoupi• 13 years ago

Also, the Chrome extension is taking some liberties to "personalize suggestions": https://getsatisfaction.com/feedly/topics/chrome_app_permiss...

drewschrauf• 13 years ago

I adore the design. Nice touch with the sinking ship.

smnl• 13 years ago

Thanks for the shoutout for BlogRoll! :)

budman• 13 years ago

I am really surprised in all these Google Reader threads I have not seen mention of the free, self-hosted and perfectly simple RSSLounge. I been using it for three years now and even donated.

Development has stalled on this one though but the developer has a new RSS project with more social stuff. It is called Selfoss and is at http://selfoss.aditu.de/ .

theone• 13 years ago

Isn't it strange that Newsblur is not even in top 5, the other poll[1] on HN suggested other wise. It was at top of the list on HN Poll.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5373538

ashamedlion5• 13 years ago

Some sites more aggressively got their users to tweet the required hashtags than others.

olegp• 13 years ago

I've been doing the same and adding them to StartHQ: https://starthq.com/apps/?q=reader

The web app profile pages include speed & trustworthiness info as well as mentions of the app on Hacker News. I will also add popularity rankings and TLDR versions of the ToS over the next few days.

Show HN: My all-nighter project to find the best Google Reader alternative

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