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Now that Google Reader is being retired, what are my options for consuming RSS feeds on the web and synchronizing with my Android device? Social media sharing is not as important to me as being able to keep up with many disparate sites/feeds in a single place and for the data to be stored in the cloud.

I'm aware of other very similar questions here, but they are old and most of the suggested alternatives have already themselves been shut down.

It should go without saying that services that solely interface with Google Reader are not a viable option (unless they have a plan for viability after Reader gets shut down).

(And, while I don't use one, it would be great if the proposed solution was usable on iOS devices, too.)

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19 Answers 19

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Feedly syncs directly to Google Reader for now, and will migrate your feeds off google reader when the time comes.

They have a post simplifying the transition from Google Reader to feedly.

Feedly runs in the browser and on various mobile devices. It supports categories for feeds like Google Reader. It supports j and k keyboard shortcuts for navigating between posts. A "tiled" view can be readily configured.

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  • It seeems to have problems with saving feeds. In a few feed old posts disappear adn it just says end of stream.
    – Robert Niestroj
    Mar 14, 2013 at 21:52
  • Feedly doesn't do very useful offline support with their Android app at present :-( Otherwise it seems good, and for the moment it may be the best of a bad bunch...
    – Flyto
    May 16, 2013 at 9:03
  • I have settled on Feedly. I've been using it pretty much since I originally asked this question, and it does just about everything I want. Now that they have an API for other apps to use (and there are several Android apps using it) it meets my criteria. Like so many things, though, this is a personal choice, and there are a lot of good options in the other answers here. I am particularly intrigued by Digg Reader, but it's not yet ready to be my full-time RSS newsreader.
    – ale
    Jul 2, 2013 at 14:12
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Both Lifehacker and CNET have been quick to dump out some options for alternatives. I think in terms of reading on the web and on mobiles (all the below have Android and iOS apps) the best options are:

  • Feedly - Probably the most popular alternative, syncs directly to Google Reader for now. Main downside is that using it on the web requires installing a browser plugin.
  • Netvibes - An RSS reader that also acts as a dashboard app (like iGoogle). Looks like an emphasis on social analytics for paid tiers, but the free level is fine for RSS reading (import Google Reader data instructions).
  • NewsBlur - A nice simple option. Free for up to 64 feeds 12 feeds [homepage copy is out of date, sign up and it only lets you turn on 12 feeds], the paid option is only $1 a month for unlimited. (import from Google Reader using this link)

Some generic instructions for exporting your feeds are available from the Data Liberation Front.

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  • 1
    I haven't confirmed personally, but NewsBlur seems to be free for only up to 12 feeds; the front page hasn't been updated.
    – dlras2
    Mar 14, 2013 at 14:04
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    would it be more valuable to split these 3 up into different answers so they can be voted on separately?
    – antony.trupe
    Mar 14, 2013 at 15:14
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    Hopefully the NewsBlur switch to 12 free sites is temporary as it appears to be a stop-gap measure to handle the load: github.com/samuelclay/NewsBlur/commit/…
    – Sam Hasler
    Mar 14, 2013 at 15:39
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    I've used feedly today. I'd upvote any answer with just that suggestion.
    – antony.trupe
    Mar 14, 2013 at 19:02
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    Netvibes wants $500 a month if I want to be able to search my feeds? Are they frickin' insane!?
    – BlueRaja - Danny Pflughoeft
    Mar 14, 2013 at 19:18
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If you don't mind self-hosting it, or finding someone who will, Tiny Tiny RSS is a Free Software web application with a similar look and feel of GReader. It comes with a mobile web UI and there are 3rd party native apps that interface with it.

screenshot of TT-RSS

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    I'm sure self-hosting is viable for some, but not most of your web users.
    – ale
    Mar 14, 2013 at 13:13
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    @AlEverett: Sure, that's certainly a drawback of TTRSS. Maybe I should offer paid hosting ;)
    – André Paramés
    Mar 14, 2013 at 15:22
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    Also consider bandwidth usage when hosting your own RSS reader. Polling a RSS feed for latest posts is a bandwidth intensive process for both client and server. Fetching intervals need to be configured and managed closely with ttRSS. If not careful, you can exceed usage allowance easily and cause unnecessary traffic to the host server. I like to set it up to fetch only when I click on the feed (at time of reading).
    – user36327
    Mar 14, 2013 at 17:48
  • Just hosted it on my shared hosting - and I'm loving it. Its mobile UI needs improvement(for e.g. Mark All As Read) but it's got 1 free(bit.ly/ZWgZkL) and 1 paid(bit.ly/14tEBmH) Android Client which are much better. Bandwidth is not a concern for me as my shared host provides "Unlimited" though slow Bandwidth :-) Here are some tips for self hosting it :software-troubleshooter.blogspot.in/2013/03/… and software-troubleshooter.blogspot.in/2013/03/…
    – simplfuzz
    Mar 29, 2013 at 18:05
  • see also my answer about yanobs reader
    – pihentagy
    Apr 25, 2013 at 10:54
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I just found Old Reader which purports to be "like Google Reader was back when it was good". It can import OPML files from Google Reader, has the same keyboard shortcuts, and seems to work pretty similarly. I'm about to try it out, and will post back once I get some impressions of it.

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    I've just started exploring, and there seems to be some form of folder system.
    – Jeromy Anglim
    Mar 14, 2013 at 10:44
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    @OmervanKloeten: this page claims otherwise: "You can drag & drop feeds and folders to change their position. Creating a new feed folder is as easy as dragging it to an empty space below your last folder."
    – orlp
    Mar 14, 2013 at 20:53
  • I take it back then. I didn't see it when I was exploring the service.
    – Omer van Kloeten
    Mar 15, 2013 at 9:02
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    No mobile solution, though.
    – ale
    Mar 16, 2013 at 1:19
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I really liked Fever but recently switched to Google Reader for the iPhone and iPad App Reeder.

It is an app that you install on your own hosting - it costs $30.

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I've used Bloglines in the past, but always come back to GReader.

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  • I don't think that at the moment there is a significant functional difference between the two, except that if you use other Google apps, it's convenient to use Reader as well.
    – Michael Kohne
    Jul 11, 2010 at 23:21
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    Bloglines is shutting down in October of 2010.
    – Michael Teper
    Sep 11, 2010 at 6:49
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    @Michael It's still alive.
    – tshepang
    Dec 12, 2010 at 7:30
  • @Stevek Why do you always come back to Google Reader?
    – tshepang
    Dec 12, 2010 at 7:30
  • @Tshepang - none of the other services I've tried are as simple and easy to use as GReader (IMHO of course)
    – Shevek
    Dec 23, 2010 at 10:25
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I am surprised that no one has mentioned Calibre - an ebook management tool. It also has capabilities for downloading RSS feeds and converting them into epubs or another format of your choice.

Calibre is available on android but I don't think is available on iOS. However, there are ways to get around it. Calibre can be left running as a background process that will auto-fetch the RSS feeds. The android app can directly sync from your 'machine'. If it's on the internet, just the URL of machine with authentication details (if any) should suffice.

You could also read them "in" calibre too. For iOS, any app that allows you to download epubs or anything for viewing should work. However, you can just open up the browser, hit your calibre server (which will throw quite a good page) and you can browse and read/download what you want.

It's pretty neat and I use it for all of my 'reading' related things.

Another option is to use Flipboard - you can add any RSS to it and it'll automatically fetch it and you can read it quite conveniently across various phones/tablets. That's also something I'd strongly recommend.

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  • +1 for Flipboard, I use it all the time. It has nice UI.
    – John Isaiah Carmona
    Mar 15, 2013 at 4:09
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Another open source self-hosted alternative would be selfoss by Tobias Zeising.

Screenshot of selfoss

I've just set it up and it works well for my few feeds. With the end of Google Reader, activity seems to have shot up and you can import your feeds from Google Reader.

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Just an alternative idea, I don't know if can be useful for you.

You can register all feeds you are interested on FriendFeed.

And then you can set in the Notification Options to send you an instant email every new post.

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    Strange. I thought FriendFeed was shut down after its acquisition by Facebook.
    – JFW
    Mar 15, 2013 at 18:31
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BazQux is very good for me: http://bazqux.com/ It also have nice feeds import from Google Reader

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    NB: it is non-free.
    – Alexander Gladysh
    Mar 14, 2013 at 8:15
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    @AlexanderGladysh: I didn't ask for free alternatives. Heck, I would have been willing to pay for Google Reader.
    – ale
    Mar 14, 2013 at 14:48
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After Google Reader turned out the lights, I experimented with a long string or RSS readers and aggregation systems. I eventually settled on Feedly and tried to camp out there. While the interface is polished and it does most things well, after a couple weeks I was frustrated with how little customization could be done. Adding feeds from mobile was also a pain and there were other minor annoyances, so I went hunting again.

Eventually I dug up InoReader and have not looked back! I actually love the service. Not only does it sport feature parity with what Google Reader was, it allows a number of usage and interface customization out of the box that I used to turn to elaborate user-scripts for. It has a low key but highly functional interface that provides an efficient work flow for consuming feeds while staying out of your face both in browser and on mobile, integrates without being invasive and has never left me wishing "if only this did/had X".

desktopdark theme

androidpreferences

The service is free for most usage (although a paid version exists that allows you to do extras like search through ALL feeds they track, not just your subscribed ones) and you will not be bothered by any advertising.

Their release blog is a good place to get a dime tour. It talks about new or revised features as they come out, but with a recent full makeover this will quickly give you an idea of what the whole system looks like.

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I'm experimenting with Pulse and am so far moderately impressed: The UI is a thing of beauty, but the user experience is quite different from Google Reader and importing your Reader feeds with the web version of the app is not possible. They claim to have a very simple import function to grab your Reader feeds in the mobile version though, which I haven't been able to try out yet.

If you're looking for something close to the Google Reader experience, The Old Reader is the best I've found.

I think the best strategy for now though is actually to keep using Google Reader for another couple of months and then migrate right before it sunsets. Google Reader's death is going to create a huge flurry of activity in the RSS feed reader space in the next few months. Hundreds of very smart people are this very moment working their asses off to make the world's best RSS feed reader and have it available before July 1, and it makes the most sense to me to give them the time to get their work online and make my decision then.

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  • Not being able to import my feeds from the web app is a non-starter for me. It looks nice, but it seems to be all style and no substance.
    – ale
    Mar 15, 2013 at 17:04
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My favorite is DailyRotation, it just simply works

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This is kind of a self-ad, but another alternative (especially if you are looking for a self-hosted option) is ownCloud News app. Check my blog post for more details: http://algorithmsforthekitchen.com/blog/?p=479

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Unlike ordinary RSS-readers, LikeHack adds links from your Facebook and Twitter feeds, and also provides two kinds of custom filters to eliminate whole topics by keywords and exclude instagram photos and other media from your feed. It makes also all links you shared searchable.

We have launched recently and glad to invite you to test!

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    Please fully disclose your affiliation with this site on each of your answers. Also be aware that the community may down vote or flag your answers as spam if you continually post the same answer across different questions. Thanks.
    – codingbadger
    Mar 14, 2013 at 12:35
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I'm posting this as an answer just for future reference.

Since I see people listing browser plugins here, too, I'll link to two alternatives, which basically rely on Google Reader.

  1. FeedSquares (a Chrome plugin)
  2. Re-Reader (a bookmarklet)

This doesn't answer my question, though. I'm still looking for web alternatives, probably unsuccessfully.

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Digg Reader

Apparently Digg wants to rebuild the best of Google Reader's features (including its API).

However, they are not there yet and many things are missing for now. It looks promising though.

See the blog post.

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  • I looked at Digg Reader, and while it has promise, it's still very much a beta product.
    – ale
    Jul 9, 2013 at 12:47
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Yanobs Reader is a paid hosted Tiny Tiny RSS.

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  • What's the difference between Yanobs and Tiny, besides being hosted?
    – André Paramés
    May 2, 2013 at 9:23
  • That's the only point. Yanobs is a hosted Tiny Tiny RSS. Answer corrected.
    – pihentagy
    May 3, 2013 at 10:29
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Q-Sensei FeedBooster seems to be a great alternative.

MakeUseOf: A Google Reader Alternative: Sort & Filter Your Busy RSS Feeds With FeedBooster

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