Hacker News Reader

Comment by patrickmay | Hacker News Reader

What I find most appealing about Google Reader is the simplicity of the interface. I just want to see a list of the sites I'm following, an indicator when new content is available, a summary of the content, and the ability to view the full content. That's it. Nothing flashy, nothing social, just the Emacs (or even vi) of RSS readers.

Newsblur comes closest for me so far, but I suspect I'll end up rolling my own.

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Same here. I don't care about someone else's algorithms for finding me news stories or any social aspects of sharing. I follow the feeds I follow and just want them served up to me in one place. And if by some random chance I want to share that with someone, I'll do that my own way. What I want from an RSS reader is just that... read my RSS. That is all.

> Newsblur comes closest for me so far

Newsblur is the opposite of what I want. I want consistent typography, and much less interface, and a google reader API compatible service so I can continue to use things like Reeder. Newsblur highlights everything but the text.

I really hope the people behind Reeder build a backend and web frontend before Google Reader goes away.

Same here. I'm ok with NewsBlur because it does what I needed from google reader: lists of feeds, lists of posts, and keyboard shortcuts to navigate between both. I actually paid for NewsBlur over Feedly just for the keyboard feed navigation.

What I miss from the keyboard shortcuts is the n/p and shift-n/p where you navigate without opening an item.

I'm currently ambivalent about the commenting/social part, but I can see it work and take off.

As long as the interface does what I want, I can ignore the fact that it's rather ugly, a bit odd here and there, and doesn't properly show the 'active' item. But I really think there should be a 'minimal' theme that emulates google reader's.

And, of course, it's currently a bit show. But I can forgive the guy for that :).

What I like about Reader is the speed.

Newsblur feels slow and bloated and of all the RSS readers I have tried it was the best.

So now I just said fuck it and I'm working on my own reader using much of the work from http://rsslounge.aditu.de/

I agree with your first paragraph. However, I'm still hoping that Reeder will support NewsBlur (or maybe another service) so that I can continue to read my feeds offline. Internet is still not always available (and if available, sometimes only very slow or very expensive). That's why I still appreciate offline reading.

looking for a simple alternative I found http://bazqux.com/ . You do have to pay for it (That was one of my requirements - that might be a barrier for some)

OMG, thanks. Finally a reader as fast as Google reader.

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