Google shutting down Google Reader: where should we go next?

Google has announced the imminent shutdown of Google Reader, effective July 1. I use Reader every day, often as the back-end for other RSS reader apps, like the excellent Newsrob for Android, and it's the core of how I blog and stay informed -- over the past several years, I've gradually shifted over from bookmarked tab-groups to feeds -- I used to have hundreds of the former, now it's more like a hundred, and my feeds have ballooned into the thousands.

Various forums have vigorous discussions of Reader readers should do next. Reddit, Hacker News and Lifehacker all give high marks to Newsblur, where I've had a paid account for quite some time. I tried Newsblur a couple years back, and liked it at first blush, but at the time found it too slow and not well enough integrated into Android for my taste. Apparently, both of those issues have improved a lot since those days, though at the moment the whole site appears to be slow due to the enormous attention it's received since the Reader shutdown notice.

What do you use for RSS?

Official Google Reader Blog: Powering Down Google Reader

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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http://twitter.com/BobbyDigital bob dickinson

I use Sage for Firefox as my main feed reader. I use chrome as my daily driver, but switch to Firefox to check my daily feeds. Haven’t found anything on chrome or mobile that comes close to the ease of use and simple styling of Sage (firefox).
Curious if anyone has a viable option for chrome or mobile.
- http://www.facebook.com/paul.t.carney Paul T Carney
  
  Sage user as well . . . any of the mobile options similar to that interface? It’s so easy . . .
- Thomas Zaraat
  
  I used Sage prior to Google. So far none of the browser extension readers I’ve tried will sync my read articles between machines.
  
  I’m trying Netvibes at the moment.
http://burntheflag.ca Jardine

Well fuck.
Rob Wheeler

The big Reader alternatives have been very bogged down since yesterday’s announcement. So good luck to anyone looking to make the switch or even look into these sites right now.
- Alan
  
  Yeah, because we only have until July 1 to get this done!
  - antifud
    
    better now than look on July 2nd.
- JayDub
  
  I had absolutely zero issues migrating to feedly.
  - http://www.facebook.com/DavidHaitch David Haddad
    
    I tried migrating to Feedly last night, right after the news hit. The site was definitely chugging, a testament to the size of Google Reader’s “declining” userbase.
    
    So far, I’m pretty happy with the Feedly user experience. I’m also shocked that Google would surrender the right to be the singular way in which I experience the internet. Everything flowed through RSS for me.
    - http://www.facebook.com/people/Robert-Drop/100000929402049 Robert Drop
      
      “I’m also shocked that Google would surrender the right to be the singular way in which I experience the internet.”
      Yeah, I’m struggling to understand Google’s reason for shutting this down.
      - Ronald Pottol
        
        Well, how many people are looking at the adds? I subscribe with a reader plugin that opens a new feed in reader, but all my reading is done in Newsrob on android, so no adds, for all the time I spend in it.
      - http://mordicai.livejournal.com Mordicai
        
        Charge me for it.
      - First Last
        
        “Declining usage”, which probably has nothing to do with them migrating features to Google+ and hiding it in the drop down of Google toolbar.
      - http://www.facebook.com/people/Robert-Drop/100000929402049 Robert Drop
        
        Wait – they haven’t shut down Google+ yet? I keep expecting them to…
    - http://daniel.bottle-imp.com/ Daniel
      
      Feedly was sluggish for me last night, too, but today has worked charmingly. So far, enjoying it more than I did Reader.
  - Bruce Heerssen
    
    I’m also using feedly, so far with good results.
  - http://twitter.com/ohmz Omar Kooheji
    
    I second this. Apparently they are going to mirror your feeds for you going forward so long as you login
  - Hazmat
    
    Am trying out Feedly as well, since I’d recently gotten their app for my Nexus 7 tablet. So far so good. Even so, I’m still very miffed about Google Reader being shut down. :/
  - Peacen1k
    
    Biggest problem with Feedly is that it requires a plugin which contains a lot of bloat and is pretty laggy.
    
    G-reader is light and fast, doesn’t require any additional plugins, and works in any browser.
    - Alan
      
      Yep – a lot of folks can’t use plugins on their work computers. Or, like me, they’re on several computers, some shared, and using plugins is a bad idea.
  - http://www.wombatilim.com Wombat
    
    I’d been using feedly on iOS for a while now and just installed their FireFox plugin yesterday when the news hit.
    
    The web version was pretty hammered yesterday after the announcement but it appears that they’ve added more servers since then and it’s running along nicely. Their recent blog post with tips for GReader refugees is really helpful:
    http://blog.feedly.com/2013/03/14/tips-for-google-reader-users-migrating-to-feedly/
Wowbagger_Infinitley_Prolonged

I have also been using Google Reader and NewsRob extensively. What I like about them is their straightforward interface, the ability to add raw RSS feeds and being able to mark feeds as “unread” so that they stay in my list.

I’ve tried Taptu and Feedly so far and neither of these have worked for me. I don’t want a fancy “magazine” layout — I just want a list of my feeds.
- Dan Wohl
  
  If you go to preferences on feedly it’s simple to change its format to a list rather than “magazine.”
  - awgrbr
    
    ++ feedly. Converted in seconds this morning when I got the notice. Automatically imported all my google reader feeds and organization.
  - Wowbagger_Infinitley_Prolonged
    
    That’s one issue, but is there a way to have a “folder” view like with Google Reader?
    - http://insight.pinkonbrown.org/ Dr P Fenderson
      
      Just click the arrow in front of each “folder”, which lets you drill down to the specific feeds. It even autoimports your folders/tags.
      - Wowbagger_Infinitley_Prolonged
        
        Is there a way to pin the folder list to the sidebar?
      - http://insight.pinkonbrown.org/ Dr P Fenderson
        
        I’m not sure – I just started using it last night. It seems that the only way this occurs is when your viewscreen is wide enough. I resized my browser to be bigger, and it immediately became pinned. I don’t see a manual way. Perhaps suggest it to them?
  - invictus
    
    My issues with Feedly so far (in decreasing order of severity)
    
    1) Images are shrunk, even when the content area size does not force this. I follow a lot of webcomic RSS feeds, and the shrunken size renders them unreadable. The custom CSS hack does not affect this, not to mention that it’d have to be enacted on every computer I use.
    2) Opening link with middle-click or ctrl-click does not mark entry as read.
    
    3) Even in list view, the entries are separated by date.
    
    4) Prominent location for “Facebook and Google+ likes,” with no way to turn it off.
    
    5) No way that I could find to get rid of the “featured” section at the top (though that is absent in list view of specific folders)
    - Ryan Spiering
      
      Try this…
      
      1) Go to, Preferences > General > Default view: Full Aricles
      
      4) Go to, Preferences > General > Side Area:
      Facebook Newsfeed: No
      Twitter Module: No
      
      Can’t help with issues 2,3 or 5.
- antifud
  
  if you try feedly, I suggest http://blog.feedly.com/2013/03/14/tips-for-google-reader-users-migrating-to-feedly . It gets linked all the time, and shows how you go back to “list of articles” without a fancy magazine layout.
- http://mordicai.livejournal.com Mordicai
  
  “The Old Reader” is promising.
http://twitter.com/MirUnauffaellig Jürgen Krauß

Fever looks quite promising to me, has anyone tried it yet? http://www.feedafever.com
- Luke Magnan
  
  Just installed it on my dreamhost account. So far, I’m kind of in love. Helps that the Reeder app for iOS supports it.
  - http://twitter.com/MirUnauffaellig Jürgen Krauß
    
    It does? Sweet!
  - boomsb
    
    Just did a Dreamhost install as well. Did you enable sharing yet? What’s your feed?
    
    http://fever.lobath.com/?rss=saved
- http://samglover.net/ Sam Glover
  
  I’ve been using it for a few weeks. If you aren’t afraid of installing software on your own server, it’s awesome. The hardest part to get used to is not needing to check your feeds every couple of hours.
- Mark Lee McDonald
  
  I’ve been using fever for a few years, it’s just fantastic.
toasterslie

More importantly, how the hell do I save the 4000 or so starred items I have in Reader? I’ve been using it to bookmark things as reference for years, and Feedly only migrated over the most recent 100 or so (with no guarantee even those will still be viewable once Reader shutters.

Google, I would PAY YOU to let me keep my starred items. You’re not even going to give us an option? And why should I trust any service from you in the future when I now associate your brand with having the rug pulled out from under me?
- annoyingmouse
  
  If you go to http://www.google.com/takeout you can download everything. Starred items are downloaded as a .json file.
  - toasterslie
    
    Where can a .json file be moved to?
    - UnderachievingSheep
      
      I don’t know your preferred browser but here’s a tutorial for Firefox.
    - gracchus
      
      From what I see, at the moment you can only turn it into a browser bookmarks file. I’m sure someone will come up with something to import into another RSS reader by July.
      - sonotamused
        
        I imported all my files – including my starred items – from reader into Bloglines.
  - gracchus
    
    I tried that last night. Takeout only exported a fraction of my starred items, going back to November of 2012. I’m hoping they’ll correct this.
    
    In the meantime I DLed FeedDemon and used it to pull as many of the starred posts away as possible into an archive on my machine. It took repeated syncs, but it looks like I got most of the starred items. I estimate about 10k starred articles total since late 2007, got about 7.5k into FeedDemon going back to mid 2009. I’d prefer to get 100% of my starred items, of course, but until Google delivers all the articles 75% will have to do.
- aonetwothree
  
  see Google’s Takeout service. You can export w/o issue and w/o payment.
- Neil Macehiter
  
  Feedly allows you to login using your Google Account and retains Starred items as Saved. You can save further articles using Feedly.
- embryoconcepts
  
  I’d use Evernote and IFTTT to save your starred items. If you don’t have them already, open accounts with both. Set up IFTTT to send all items that are starred in Google Reader to Evernote. You may have to go through your starred items and un/re-star them, but it beats losing all of that info. Evernote is available for web and all platforms, so you won’t be at the mercy of a web only service again for important info.
  - CRiddell
    
    But you are still at the mercy of a single company running proprietary software. I would look for a more open solution.
    - Ronald Pottol
      
      Good luck with that. But there are free as in speech (not just beer) evernote clients, like NixNote, so worst case, you would have a local instance with everything.
- http://mordicai.livejournal.com Mordicai
  
  And why should I trust any service from you in the future when I now associate your brand with having the rug pulled out from under me?
  
  We shouldn’t.
  - http://makerraf.myopenid.com/ dolphin
    
    exactly. that’s why I moved to hosting my own, personal and independent TT-RSS installation. http://tt-rss.org.
    - http://mordicai.livejournal.com Mordicai
      
      Ugh, looking at that hurts my brain, but maybe I SHOULD figure it out.
http://www.facebook.com/nelladarren Christine Hintermeyer

I just moved my feeds to Bloglines – it basically feels like Google Reader so I didn’t try any others.
- stalkingcat
  
  I’ve been using Bloglines since Google Reader did their big redo a couple years back. It’s basically how I thought how the new Google Reader was going to look, before we got that lousy black and red layout.
  
  I’ve been pretty happy with Bloglines. The search function is pretty crappy, and I can only view from newest to oldest and can’t change to oldest to newest. Meh, I can live without those features.
  
  Bloglines was timing out a lot last night, but does seem to be running better today. Last night was the only time I had ever had problems with the website.
  - http://twitter.com/gordbird Gordon Bird
    
    Bloglines and Netvibes are the same thing. I started investigating Netvibes when google announced that they were shuttering iGoogle. Killing Reader was enough of a push to jump in both feet.
    - Elayne Riggs
      
      Wow, Bloglines is still operating? They said they were going to shut down a few years ago so I abandoned them…
      - http://www.aldenbates.com/ Alden
        
        Bloglines was bought out before it actually shut down, so it ended up operating without interruption. Of course, by the time they announced that it was going to keep going, I’d already settled in on Google Reader so I figured I might as well stay there.
Grant Henninger

I started using Feedly (http://www.feedly.com) yesterday after this announcement. It integrates with Reader (which was awesome when I set it up) and they’re working on getting their own backend, called Normandy, up and running prior to July 1st. They’re promising a seamless transition from Reader to Normandy for existing Reader users. The greatest part about Feedly is that it understood that all of my starred items were “saved for later” and imported them as such. So far I like it quite a bit.
- toasterslie
  
  Feedly only displayed the most recent of my starred items, not all of them.
- fractos
  
  Feedly appears not to understand the posting date of blogger articles correctly. Certainly loading them in a funny order on my stuff.
  - http://www.genocideman.com/ Remus Shepherd
    
    I’ve heard — this is second-hand information — that Feedly doesn’t reorder articles so much as curate them. It decides what you want to see and what you want to skip. So you may miss articles in your feeds, and extra articles from other feeds may show up if Feedly deems them relevant to your interests.
    
    This auto-curating behavior is reason number two why I won’t migrate to Feedly. (Reason number one is the blinding and nonintuitive interface, with integrated and necessary gesture commands. The designer should be slapped.)
    - http://insight.pinkonbrown.org/ Dr P Fenderson
      
      You can manually set it to display in order of time posted. Both the “Timeline” and “Titles” view do just that. “Titles” is pretty much the exact same thing as Google Reader when you used the collapsed view.
- ikelleigh
  
  Yep, started using Feedly only hours ago and so far love it. Also has an IOS app as well. The one thing I’m confused on is that it doesn’t seem to have a login of it’s own, so where is it storing my feed information?
  - http://insight.pinkonbrown.org/ Dr P Fenderson
    
    They have their own backend, called Normandy. When you sign it, it imports your feeds, categories, and starred items. These are automagically put into Normandy, which use the Google Reader API, and Feedly with switch over to it entirely when GReader closes.
    - ikelleigh
      
      Since I used Google to sign in, does it associate my feed information with my Google account?
      - http://insight.pinkonbrown.org/ Dr P Fenderson
        
        I’m not exactly sure what you mean by that.
        
        Currently the permissions it needs, according to Google’s security page, is “Profile Information, Google Reader”. So, probably your name and UID, as well as your GReader feeds and settings. Their blog has more information about Normandy, although not much. It seems they snag the info, mirror it with both Google AND Normandy, and when GReader shuts down everything will be going through Normandy. It should still allow you to log in with Google and act as normal after GReader shuts down, since the data is now on Normandy, and Google Authentication isn’t going anywhere.
      - ikelleigh
        
        Yeah I know it’s going into Normandy, but I don’t really log-in to a Feedly/Normandy account. I was curious how it will associate my feed data once Google Reader goes away.
      - http://insight.pinkonbrown.org/ Dr P Fenderson
        
        Since I cannot reply to a comment that far down, I’ll try again.
        
        When you log into Feedly, rather than registering an account, you’re using Oauth 2.0 to securely pull account data from Google to make you an account on Feedly. At this time, Feedly registers you with an account on their server that can only be logged into using the Google Oauth. They then pull your data from Google Reader and import it into their backend, which works exactly like the Google Reader backend.
        
        Once GReader goes away, you will be able log in and continue to use Feedly in the same way as ever, since they are simply authenticating your login using Google’s OAuth (which isnt’ going anywhere) and your data that had been mirrored on their backend. So, even though it seems like you’re not logging into a Feedly/Normandy account, you really are.
        
        I hope that explains it more clearly.
      - ikelleigh
        
        Yes, thank you very much!
Chris Hogan

Test-driving feedly at the the moment. It’s bearable in Headlines mode.

The first person to build a functional retro-clone of Google Reader stands to make a killing.
- NotthefakeLevi
  
  I haven’t tried it yet, but http://theoldreader.com/ is supposed to be a retro Google Reader
  - http://www.facebook.com/jkonrath Jon Konrath
    
    When I tried theoldreader, my Google account freaked out and thought someone in Germany was trying to hack it. I’m sure they forgot to put something in their web app to authenticate it as a known developer (or whatever) but it was disconcerting to have this giant red banner at the top of my Google pages saying my account had been compromised.
    - NotthefakeLevi
      
      Damn. That is unfortunate. I am being selfish and letting the best options be tested out by others, but the display for theoldreader definitely was a selling point. Perhaps they, like Newsblur, will be migrating to hosting their own data in light of these changes by Google.
    - Bill
      
      I did that, too. :D Then I changed my password just in case. They should be using the Google Account access authorization thing, not logging in as you, using your username and password.
      
      Instead, you should download the OPML file from Google Takeout and then import that. It’s a .xml.
  - Bill
    
    It looks good so far, but their servers are dying under the load. Hurry up and fix your site dudes!
  - http://insight.pinkonbrown.org/ Dr P Fenderson
    
    The Old Reader lacks folders, tags, different views, and is just not the same. I also can’t import my 200+ feeds, and have been having to do it by hand for hours. :(
    - gardenofevils
      
      I wasn’t able to import for about 24 hours but when I was finally able to, I was in a queue of 16,266 people. Give it time and I think it will be pretty great.
    - Jonathan Perrine
      
      The import functionality is just overwhelmed. To make folders, drag a feed to the bottom of the left side bar. It is the least intuitive thing on the service, but is called out in their startup FAQ. They have also said they are only at 50% parity with Greader, but working on it.
      - http://insight.pinkonbrown.org/ Dr P Fenderson
        
        You are AWESOME. Thanks for this tip. I seriously couldn’t figure it out for the life of me.
http://www.facebook.com/ckoontz Chris Koontz

Farhad Manjoo write an article for Slate sometime ago about how he replaced RSS feed reading with bookmarks and tabs. http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2009/05/kill_your_rss_reader.single.html
- NotthefakeLevi
  
  I follow Matt Yglesias’ take: “The official Farhad Manjoo Slate stance, incidentally, is that you shouldn’t be using an RSS reader at all but that’s incorrect.”
  - http://joeross.me/ joeross
    
    If I gave up RSS, I’d use a Twitter list. In fact, I started a Twitter list some time ago called RSS and started following all my Reader feeds in it, to the extent that they had Twitter accounts. I use it often, but I’ll still miss that backend API Reader had for use by other incredible apps.
  - gracchus
    
    “Farhad Manjoo” and “incorrect on tech” are synonymous for me these days. His Slate articles are trollish linkbait articles like Katie Roiphe’s, and I don’t bother with them anymore.
    
    My experience with bookmarks and saved tabs is like Cory’s: while they have their place, from a news reading POV they’ve been rendered highly inefficient by Reader.
scatterfingers

Feedly is very good.
http://www.facebook.com/seanharrigan Sean Harrigan

Between this and iGoogle’s retirement, I’m sure my internet experience is going to change considerably. Every time I want to check my e-mail, or run a search I’m exposed to my RSS widget. Without that widget in my face probably 50 times a day I know I’d miss the majority of content on sites that post frequently, like BoingBoing.
- ocker3
  
  I loved my iGoogle, then they killed that and pushed me to Reader, now they’re killing that!
http://bhtooefr.org/ Eric Rucker

Self-hosted Tiny Tiny RSS.

http://tt-rss.org/redmine/projects/tt-rss/wiki
- atteSmythe
  
  Thank you! I’m definitely going to try this. I increasingly mistrust cloud apps, but I like my services online. Self-hosted is the obvious solution to the dilemma.
http://www.facebook.com/apasyuta Anton Pasyuta

http://theoldreader.com is awesome, has social thingies I miss from GReader and definitely looks much better than Newsblur
- Bill
  
  Yep, Newsblur is clunky and bloated, and they expect people to pay them for it? Too much form, not enough function. Adding filters on top of feeds is a great idea, but their implementation needs work.
- Jonathan Perrine
  
  I just hope that TheOldReader eventually adds in the social functionality to post to G+, or generate an RSS based on your likes.
David Deslauriers

Just switched to NetVibes, seems pretty cool so far :)
- http://neublek.tumblr.com Neublek
  
  Yes, Netvibes is great. I’ve been using it from the beginning and love it. My day always begins with coffee and Netvibes.
  
  Netvibes is very attractive, customizable, and easy-to-use.
  http://www.netvibes.com
- http://losinfinitos.tumblr.com Haz 0
  
  Another vote for NetVibes, been using it since Google Reader changed UI’s a while back, never looked back B-)
- http://twitter.com/shay_guy Shay Guy
  
  I actually used NetVibes before Google Reader. Funny how these things work.
- http://irishkate.livejournal.com/ Irishkate
  
  Ye – I just transferred everything to Netvibes. We’ll have to see how that goes.
Ramone

Google: “Try our products! Love them!”
Me: “Hey, this is pretty nice!”
Google: “Too bad! We’re closing it!”
REPEAT.
- TheKaz1969
  
  I am not sure I ever thought Google Reader was nice. I just used it as a default because I was already integrated into their ecosystem. Like I said in another comment, if Feedly can seamlessly switch me over when Google Reader goes dark, I am fine with that. I actually like their feed reader experience a little better.
  - Ramone
    
    Reader is just one of the better ones I’ve tried as far as organizing (tagging, categorizing) blogs. You can also reload blog posts you’ve read before. I use NewsRob for reading on my mobile, but once you click off the article–it’s gone. Reader stores all the info so you can go back to it.
    
    But in general, I feel like Google has been shutting down stuff I’ve learned to love for a while. Waiting for Blogger to go next (I’m guessing by end of the year).
septimar

I got FeedDemon recommended, and so far I like it. It can synchronize with Google Reader, which I did, so I got my feeds imported. After that I unsynched it naturally.
- Isaac Marx
  
  Hate to burst your bubble: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/031413-feeddemon-to-shut-down-but-267699.html
  - septimar
    
    I quote:
    
    “FeedDemon will continue to work as a standalone RSS reader after Google Reader closes on July 1.”
    
    So, if it’s gonna continue to work, why should I worry?
    - Isaac Marx
      
      Ah, didn’t see that. Carry on.
    - http://insight.pinkonbrown.org/ Dr P Fenderson
      
      Because the developer cannot pay for it or spend the time on it anymore? The developer is totally abandoning it.
      
      But it’s time for FeedDemon to die.
  - gracchus
    
    For the moment I’m trying to use it to archive my many starred items. The back end storage is apparently a SQLite database, which opens up some interesting possibilities.
    
    Sadly, FeedDemon is only the first of many apps on several platforms that will be out of business by July. Google is screwing over lots of people with this decision.
- HeavyLight
  
  Don’t look now…
  
  http://nick.typepad.com/blog/2013/03/the-end-of-feeddemon.html
http://twitter.com/ziselberger Patrick Ziselberger

Not only does this make me sad, it makes me channel Andrew Lloyd Weber:
♫
Don’t cry for me, Google Reader!
The truth is, I’ve never left you.
All through my twitter years,
my Facebook posting.
I’ve kept my promise,
Don’t stop your service!
♫
TheKaz1969

I am trying out feedly right now as a web-based reader (well, okay, Chrome plug-in). Have been happy with their Android reader for a while now.

The key will be how well they are able to import all my Google stuff (subscriptions, starred items) once Google Reader goes dark.
http://twitter.com/RowRow78 Rowan Banks

Feedly.com on Firefox for me! They have some clever doo-hicky in the background which they tell me will mean that when Google pulls the plug in July I won’t notice any difference.

It’s also got a very nice layout. :)
Matt Volatile

Feedly’s OK, but the design is fussy and overbearing, and the app doesn’t suck feeds for offline reading. I’m encouraged by their promise to clone the API, and hopefully the developer of NewsRob will port it to work with Feedly, but that seems like a long shot.

I’m like a lot of you here – I have been using Stars to feed content to Twitter via IFFTT and also to save / bookmark interesting content. I’m so cross Google is shutting Reader down; it’s literally the first tab I open in the morning….
http://twitter.com/chapuis Joe Chapuis

Moved to Feedly this AM. So far, so good.
After having been an iGoogle user for years, a few months ago, they said: “Sorry, we’re closing down iGoogle in November, 2013 – but here’s a great alternative, use Google Reader…”
Well… thanks for suggestion, Google!
So that’s just what I did. And after spending way too much time trying to figure out how to export/import feeds, customize everything… I now find out they’re dumping me again – but this time, with even less notice.
Waaaa! (Not sure, is that how you spell out a cry baby noise?) First world problems, I know. And it’s a free service, so I really shouldn’t complain. But I want to complain, because I’m pissed.
But seriously? Could any other company get away with treating their users this way? It’s like the old Philip Morris… get your customers hooked, and then do what you want with them until they die a slow, miserable death from using your product.
Asshats.
Try Feedly. Useful tips here:
http://blog.feedly.com/2013/03/14/tips-for-google-reader-users-migrating-to-feedly/
But if they close down, I’m out for blood.
-joe
Joel Finkle

I’ve been using netvibes for years, and am mostly happy. Their mobile interface needs some beefing up (and I’d rather see a native Android app than a mobile web, but most of the time, that would just be a shell around a web interface anyway), but it’s got lots of non-RSS widgets that makes it a place to aggregate about 80% of my total web consumption.
Tami Chase

I just migrated my Google Reader to Bloglines. Simple to do and looks similar to my old Reader except my feed is time based, rather than site based.
- http://www.facebook.com/paul.t.carney Paul T Carney
  
  I thought they went other a while back . . . that was why I switched to Sage . . . so confused . . .
Panicdots

I use Newsfire. Seems good, but it’s the only one i’ve ever used.
http://twitter.com/chrnoble Chris Noble

I don’t have a mobile device or tablet, so I’m trying Liferea for my desktop.
ArghMonkey

For the desktop I can switch back to using RSSOwl but for Android I need a new solution.

I am currently testing out feedly but I notice it pulled the feeds from my Google Reader account.
I also just brought over my RSS Feeds to Google Currents but again, I am unclear if I will lose those feeds once reader is killed.
- Mike Earley
  
  Feedly has built a GR clone they’re calling Normandy, which will basically move your feeds from GR to Feedly’s version, so definitely stick with it.
http://twitter.com/rolio Rolio

Rolio (http://www.rolio.com) is an alternative to Google Reader which, in addition to RSS, also supports the integration of Facebook and Twitter into your timeline for real-time updates. Rolio also supports the importing of your Google Reader feeds. Boing Boing is currently featured within the Entertainment section of the Rolio directory.
Mike Earley

Definitely check out Feedly, they are going to convert the GR feeds into a ‘clone’ of GR called Normandy. I’ve been using Feedly as an interface to GR for months and months now, on all platforms, and it’s just awesome–so much better than the stock GR interface. So I’m expecting an uninterrupted experience, when google goes away. Flip the switch, basically.
embryoconcepts

I’ll be waiting to see what Reeder has in the works. It is far and away my favorite RSS experience (only iOS and Mac, right now), so I’m hoping they will have a web or browser extension solution coming soon. Looks hopeful, from the brief tweets they’ve posted.
- ethicalcannibal
  
  I’m in the same boat. I use Reeder for my iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and I don’t want to leave it.
  
  What’s their twitter? I’ll be following this closely.
  - embryoconcepts
    
    @reederapp
    - ethicalcannibal
      
      Thanks so much.
http://twitter.com/SunShine_K SunShine_K

So lets see…Feed Demon tits up..I am now using Feed Reader 3.14 and its not bad….I test drove Newsblur and it was shite. Requesting a refund after waiting over 10 hours for an .OPML file to upload.
- Neal Kemp
  
  Newsblur got caned by everyone immediately looking for alternatives, it’s a one man team and he is getting sleep after being up all night firefighting due to the huge load increases. Not sure what you expect from a small start up. It looks the most promising to me, reinstating some of the features lost during the first reader upgrade, and more. I’m more than happy to give it time.
Rob Rooker

A petition to keep reader going:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?hl=en_US&formkey=dE16SFVla3JFZ1lwTkxGRWN2SkZtb2c6MA#gid=0
- tomservojr
  
  I thought about signing, but honestly I think I’m ready to wean myself off of Google’s services. If they’d rather sink money into Google+ and ridiculous glasses, maybe they aren’t the company for me anymore. DuckDuckGo for search, Evernote/Dropbox for documents, and … something else for mail, eventually.
http://www.facebook.com/jkonrath Jon Konrath

Feedly looks great so far, but I’m now dreading the imminent announcement that they’ve been acquired by Google and will be shutting down everything an hour ago.
ArghMonkey

No love here for RSSOwl eh? Shame
- phuzz
  
  I used to use it, up until I started using more than one computer to browser on. Somewhere around then Google Reader was introduced and I’ve used it ever since.
- Daemonworks
  
  I do. Nothing else I’ve encountered has decent filtering abilities.
danny jacobs

Do any of the these others have something like “sort by magic” or the usage stats?
- Neal Kemp
  
  Newsblur has a training option which lets you mark individual stories as of interest or not to you, which sounds similar enough to the old reader magic option to be exciting to me.
Andrew Singleton

For now I’m giving Thunderbird a try since. Well. Desktop Program (I want to strangle whoever popularized ‘app’ as a word.)

Given I use an ubuntu derivitive, any recommendations?
Bill

Google is on a strange course these days. Who’s at the helm? What changed?
- gracchus
  
  My take is that they’re trying to push their advertising and analytics business models out into meatspace as much as possible, whether it be through the self-driving car, the Glass interface, Android phones, or off-line relationship networks via Google+.
  
  None of those are particularly wrong-headed or even strange courses, but they seem to be willing to sacrifice long-standing and beloved Internet-only services like Reader in the process. It makes me wonder how seriously they’re committed even to Gmail, because who needs old-fashioned e-mail when you have social networking?
  
  If they want to go up against Facebook and let users read news feeds through that kind of messed-up and inefficient lens, fine. I’m sure they could have found a way to integrate Reader with Google+. But there was no need to screw with millions of people’s daily workflows by yanking a nicely designed and extensible tool that worked perfectly well.
gracchus

The “declining usership” excuse is BS. It’s about moving users to Google+ and a Facebook-like or Twitter-like social interface for skimming the Web. Just what we needed in our news experience, Google: more cruft, less text and indexing/search, and mixing our news feeds with the equivalent of mail forwards from our Teabagger relatives and relationship updates from our friends.

With at least a million active users (10% of an estimated 10-million users total according to the subscription stats) who are willing to pay for the service, Google could easily fund this or even run it at a profit, while continuing to mine the interests of the information junkies who use it. Hey, they might even serve ads to the users, although what advertiser would be interested in affluent, tech-savvy and educated psychographic that usually fits that description of info junky?
- David Faler
  
  They may even loose G+ users like me. If I can’t easily share articles to select groups like I can with Shift-S and type the name of the group, I’ll stop posting to G+. I don’t see that if feedly, which seems the closest to what I want from what I can see, or just go back to Akregator, which was efficient, although then I’ll need to ssh home from a VM on my laptop.
  - gracchus
    
    This article discusses how they might be planning to fold news reading into G+ and make the sharing you’re describing easier:
    
    http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/03/google-reader-will-rise-again-as-part-of-google
    
    The problem remains that trying to read multiple subscription feeds through a cluttered social network timeline/wall/tweetstream lens is very inefficient for high-volume info consumers. Reader wasn’t perfect — especially after they screwed with its original social sharing and pretty much abandoned development — but it did what it said on the tin extremely well.
http://twitter.com/LetticePeyton Lettice Peyton

I migrated to Feedly for Firefox this morning. It was incredibly simple and I really like the interface.
mwschmeer

Is there a good web-based reader that isn’t a Firefox or Chrome add-on? I check my RSS feeds from different computers–the library, classrooms, my office, etc. I don’t have a smartphone or tablet, so apps are out for me.
Lynn

I am trying out http://bazqux.com. It looks very much like Google Reader, imported perfectly, and has some features GR doesn’t, like showing comments on a post (at your option). It’s free for 30 days then $9 a year. Some downsides, like it has it’s own keyboard shortcuts which means my own navigation keybindings don’t work, and I can’t figure out how to force a refresh. But so far, it’s the closest to GR that actually works (so far I can’t import my feeds into Old Reader, though I’d like to check that one out too).
http://twitter.com/stuck411 David

Sad to see Google Reader disappearing. It was sweet & easy and worked with my Opera Mini so nicely. My current non-cloud RSS reader is Opera. Up side is you can search the feeds & mark anything as you like. Downside is that there’s no easy way to discover feeds you might want to snag like you could with Google Reader.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_XVQ3P26PRRXN7DDUDNSBQ556JE Fire Onyx

I am ok with a non-web app, so long as I can sync my read/unread status, subscribed feeds, etc to a cloud location (dropbox?! .xml file(s)) so I can read on any device and not have to re-sync every time.

The functionality for Feedly has what I need, but the layout is pretty horrible. Lots of wasted screen real estate, especially on the right. “Themes” is a joke, all it lets you do is change the sidebar background color. Where is the option to change the feed pane’s size or have collapsible panes? Perhaps once the new API is done, someone can do a better job with the layout.

Newsblur: Free edition is pretty limited
- Casual_Economy
  
  uuugh, the Feedly layout is awful, how are you to make sense of hundreds of feeds at once? Impossible with their layout. Tiles are the equivalent of Television, you have no choice, only the few things in front of your face. Why would I want to see all new articles, not sorted by feed? Ugh, it’s all awful.
- Neal Kemp
  
  The newsblur free edition was scaled back due to the sudden demand, it’ll be going back up once the capacity is there, i.e. back up to 64 feeds rather than 12. Or you can install the version on github and have unlimited for free afaik.
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_XVQ3P26PRRXN7DDUDNSBQ556JE Fire Onyx
  
  There are some pretty decent Stylish (FF/Chrome add on) css themes for Feedly to give you just the 2 bars: http://userstyles.org/styles/browse/feedly which make it better than google reader’s version imho.
Casual_Economy

FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU GOOOOOGLE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok. I wanna use Feedly, but is there a way to arrange it just like google reader? I want a list of all my feeds on the left, and in the main box, condensed versions of every article. Does ANYONE do this?

Does any service offer integration and a layout EXACTLY like Google Reader?
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_XVQ3P26PRRXN7DDUDNSBQ556JE Fire Onyx
  
  Several ways: Stylish + http://userstyles.org/styles/browse/feedly
Leonardo Cunha

I tried to get my thoughts together and write about this debacle http://pi4nobl4ck.tumblr.com/post/12182414166/
http://twitter.com/davelucas Dave Lucas

One less bell to answer. Shows you how easy Google can “discontinue at will.” What could be next?
Eric Hart

I guess Google is getting rid of Reader so it can focus on the basics: robot cars and magic glasses.
http://anti-virus-rants.blogspot.com imaguid

i decided that i’m going to try to cobble together an RSS solution using none other than GMail. i figure i should get some of the same features i have right now with Reader, and a few things might even be better. i also posted a nice little G+ post thanking larry and sergey and explaining how my solution will probably be worse for them while in some ways better for me and others like me
https://plus.google.com/107908050057565617269/posts/fEhneYqHgVS
http://www.matthewdaly.co.uk/ Matthew Daly

I’ve used Newsbeuter in the past with Google Reader, and I have a VPS I’m under-using at present, so I’m considering just using that on the VPS and accessing it via SSH. It’s really easy to import the OPML file from Google Reader, and it’s significantly faster when not using Google Reader as an intermediary.
Daemonworks

I couldn’t get into using reader – it was in desperate need of filtering, and I couldn’t be bothered to set up Yahoo Pipes for everything.
I tend to use RSSOwl simply because it’s got the most robust set of options for organizing, filtering, etc. that I’ve yet seen, which is rather handy if you’re drawing from somewhere north of 50 rather active feeds.
ethicalcannibal

Can someone tell me if Feedly has apps for iPhone, iPad, and mac that sync? I’ve been using Reeder for all three mostly because it syncs. I really want a solution that lets me switch devices depending on mood and location.
GawainLavers

If you are in the advertising business, the best customers are the dumb customers and the worst customers are the smart customers. Smart customers like products that help them eliminate clutter, babble and inanity: the latter essentially the raison d’etre of Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc.

It’s not that Reader was particularly expensive to keep up, or that there was no way to monetize it (they didn’t even try to add adwords), or that they think they can funnel Reader users into Google+. It’s that Reader users are baggage they want to dispense with.
Thomas Zaraat

I’ve tried a number of the alternatives. So far they all have downsides.

Feedly needs a browser extension and I don’t like any of the layouts they provide.

Netvibes doesn’t seem to have a way to import starred items. Also I vastly prefer Google’s keyboard shortcuts. The seeming lack of starred items support is more important to me however.

Feeddemon is being shut down. Sync won’t work after Google shuts down Reader.

Sage and other browser hosted readers don’t sync the state of read items.

In addition all the Chrome RSS reader addons that I tried lacked important features like folder support or starring.

I follow a lot of feeds, so Newsblur would cost money. I’m a cheap bastard and I’m maxed out on the amount I’m willing to spend on the internet.

I’ll probably to move my starred items over to something like Pocket and then use Netvibes or Feedly for reading feeds. I dread the thought of what will happen when any of those services shut down.
- Thomas Zaraat
  
  After a little more research I was able to find a CSS hack for Feedly.
  
  http://www.lostsaloon.com/technology/use-css-to-customize-feedly-to-use-full-width-of-the-screen-version-8/
  
  Buh-bye Google!
http://twitter.com/breerly Grayson Koonce

http://readapp.com/ – touting itself as a “Simple Replacement for Google Reader”… curious to see where that goes…
http://twitter.com/megcasson Meg Casson

Just fuck.

How annoying.
http://youheardme-achilles3.blogspot.kr/ achilles3

Been using Feedly for the past two days as I cried about Reader.
And I am happy to report that I really like it!
Birdseed

I’ve been using The Old Reader for months, and until the slowdowns this week it’s been great – moderately fast, good updates, many social functions back. Wait a few days for them to get up t speed and this is definitely the way to go.
http://twitter.com/rolypoly rwitter

http://www.privateoss.com web based rss reader as an alternative to google reader.
James Churchill

This is seriously making me reconsider my reliance on *any* Google services – how long until they offline GMail? It even prompted me to switch to DuckDuckGo as my default search engine.
Daniel Prieto

Until this week I used Google Reader, and I have just switched to Feedly.
http://profiles.google.com/substancemcgravitas Substance McGravitas

I use NetNewsWire. Has better feed sorting than most things I’ve tried: it’ll sort all headlines alphabetically, for instance, regardless of the feed, and that way I tend to look at more sources at once.
http://notthemessiah.net/ Dean

Cory, I’d love to see a 2.5 month follow-up to this article. I’m a huge fan of newsrob on android for offline news reading. Let us know what you (and the rest of BB) start using.