gPodder: A simple, open-source podcast client
gpodder.github.io
gpodder.github.io
Also, AntennaPod does not strip the tracking information from podcast URLs.
Self-hosting a podcast server might not be a bad idea.
At some point though, phones (and "mobile Internet devices") became powerful and programmable enough that it made sense to port gPodder to "Desktop Linux Userland"-based devices and phones (N800, N810, N900, N9, Jolla) and run it directly on the phone.
These days, my day-to-day podcast consumption happens with the built-in Podcasts app on the iPhone, but gPodder (on the Desktop) is still useful for downloading and archiving (hoarding) YouTube subscriptions (especially since there are so many ads on the web and TV versions of YouTube), mixes from Soundcloud and others and just interesting podcast episodes that might not be available in the future.
I even recently submitted a patch to re-introduce iPod support, so the current version can sync to iPod minis again if you want to have a distraction-free retro podcast listening experience on the go :)
Nowadays I'm using gPodder on a phone with Sailfish OS:
https://openrepos.net/content/keeperofthekeys/gpodder
The app is actually linked from the submitted page, but it's easy to miss there.
I also noticed that if I create list of shows to listen to later, I end up listening to more interesting stuff, as I filter out items which are not as useful few weeks later.
(This does not matter in terms of numbers, as that‘s at best a few thousand people, but still.)
Edison Research says that desktops/laptops account for 13% of listening in Q4'2021, having dropped 7% since the start of that year. I'd predict that it falls to under 10% by the end of 2022.
In the early days of podcasts I listened to them on my computer (downloaded over precious dial up time, where the time to download the episode was longer than the time required to listen to it), but as soon as I got an iPod they were a mobile thing for me.
Incidentally I had used JuiceReceiver for years until it stopped working (due to the SSL algos from 2005 finally giving in) and then wrote a replacement in C++/Qt with an online backend, just to track which episodes I listened to (and because it was fun, mostly).
I just discovered podverse from browsing f-droid a few days ago, has some similarities with pocket cast which I have been using since before they were sold the first time.
You can also use the news app for nextcloud to show podcasts along with rss news stories, if you are looking for something along those lines.
I actually just submitted the podverse link for discussion here just a few mins ago, so I am pasting a link:
It integrated with Panucci, which for me has an ideal (although a little unfinished) interface for playing podcasts/ebooks, I don't know what I'm going to do without Panucci when the N900 finally goes kaput. I heard its code is horrific, though, and that the qPodder guy hated it.
Panucci is still around and should be usable on the Desktop, but the last commit was several years ago: https://github.com/gpodder/panucci
Starting with the N9 and later Sailfish OS, the UI of the mobile app was re-done in Qt/QML (so don't name your project after the toolkit of the day...). There, audio playback was integrated into the main application, so there was no need for a separate app like Panucci (this also made it easier to sync fine-grained playback positions between devices using gpodder.net, although this also works with MPRIS2 and e.g. VLC on the Desktop these days).
I've tried every iOS app I could find. They're all turrible for this use case. Yes, even Overcast. [1]
I truly wonder if anybody making the apps ever used their own apps.
I just tried gPodder. Alas, the UI is 1/4 size.
[1] Overcast shows played episodes in the unplayed tab. So to download episode 200, I have to scroll down thru 199 played episodes, then manually download the next episodes. Yes, I filed bug reports.
My favourite feature: The extension that lets you reencode the files. I use that to reencode all audio files to opus @ 20 kbit/s.
If you want to keep thousands of episodes forever that really saves space.
Most podcasts just offer ridiculously unnecessary high bitrates.
You can do similar things on Linux as well, but there it is easy to fix by setting `noexec` on /home.
(a) doesn't have a Web browser, or
(b) has some way to ensure the code it's running is not from a site where the user wrote all (or even just some) of it
I'm happy to be able to download "physical" (how ironic) copies of my favourites episodes in mp3 and can't wait to try to automatise their transfer to my fiio X3 for offline listening.
Also, I can see an alternative to Youtube in this, so feel free to share flow if you do use gPodder for staying uptodate with your YT subscriptions !
Full disclosure, my employer facilitates offering paid private feeds to podcast audiences.
It drives me crazy that on YouTube I pay for premium and still need to sidestep ads. It makes sense; the creators don’t get paid directly from my membership and if they did it would be fractions of pennies. But that’s the problem; I want to support them directly. The platform is nice, but it’s mostly fungible. The excellent content often isn’t.
I think an hour+ podcast is absolutely valuable. Some are incredibly thoughtful and well-produced. I hope more podcasters adopt this model!
It’s always strange to see grey comments with no responses explaining why anyone disagrees. In some cases it’s clear – maybe someone appears to be a troll or something. In this case I wonder why someone would downvote me for wanting to support content creators. It isn’t a perfect analogy but it seems that selling software to users is something a lot of us here can get behind – wouldn’t we want our users to want to support us? Maybe I’m missing something though.
Alternatively some platforms now have their own proprietary ways, like Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Ideally it'd let me attach text to a certain time code (like possible with soundcloud).
Sort of wish I'd more carefully archived some of those old episodes, especially Wiretap. In that era it felt like there less than a dozen high-quality podcasts and it seemed possible to listen to everything.
If you roll your own, https://github.com/gpodder/podcastparser is a neat little Python library that has been split out from (and is now used by) gPodder, as dealing with all kinds of RSS (and Atom) specialities is kind of something you want to outsource if possible.
i listen to podcasts on a variety of devices. when i find a new podcast, it's nice to be able to add the RSS URL to a single dotfiles repo and then deploy it to all my devices. i see the option to manually OPML import via the GUI: can i just stash an OMPL file somewhere and have it auto-load that on start?
The `gpo` command-line utility can do most of the tasks of the GUI that you want to automate.
If you are missing anything, please file an issue over at https://github.com/gpodder/gpodder/issues
i think this causes the start time to be linear w.r.t. the number of feeds, but it’s working fine for the time being