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You are here: Home / Balloon Juice / Bleg / RSS reader bleg

RSS reader bleg

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The new version of Google Reader is a disaster, weird colors, doesn’t size properly, red buttons everywhere for stuff you don’t want to do.

Are there any decent RSS readers for Mac? I tried bloglines but it makes it a pain to migrate my Google subscriptions over. Is there anything else that’s good?

Am I wrong to think that Google has gone so wrong — first with Buzz, then with this — that I should think about having an alternative to Gmail in case they shit that bed too?

Reader Interactions

99Comments

  1. 1.

    burnspbesq

    Gmail looks like it’s in pretty good hands. Have you seen a better implementation of two-factor authentication?

    And everybody who uses any part of Google should read Fallows’ article about the hacking of his wife’s Gmail account.

  2. 2.

    Shinobi

    I wish they’d implemented sharing on google plus, without getting rid of all the other functionality.

  3. 3.

    Jim Pharo

    Pathetic or not, I use “My Yahoo” in Safari (Snow Leopard) and it’s fine. I’ve looked at several alternatives over the years and found nothing better…

    Lame? Sure. Using Yahoo in 2011? Youbetcha!

  4. 4.

    jl

    Ahh, I think we have discovered the source or DougJ’s Bobaddiction, and generally crummy mood.

    Here is my solution: get rid of your RSS reader. Otherwise, you’ll put your eye out, kid.

    Shouldn’t you be thinking up better situations for the fictional blog character Johngcole? For example, that post where you made him say he ran out of Halloween candy and turned out the lights and tried to hide from the kids by pretending not to be home, jeez, that’s an old Jack Benny skit.

  12. 12.

    RossInDetroit

    I got hit with the Google Reader changeover today. I have only about 35 subscriptions but I can see this being a headache if I had more. Or on a monitor smaller than 20″. It would be completely useless on a netbook or a mobile device.

  17. 17.

    MGONOLA

    The application, found in the app store, called Reeder is really good. Really really good.

    I hope they get this worked out because it would be awesome to integrate with Google+.

  18. 18.

    burnspbesq

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Bauhaus is one of those bands that I just never connected with.

    One of the greatest live shows I’ve ever seen was Oingo Boingo and X at the Orange Pavilion in San Bernardino in the summer of 1987. It was about 130 degrees in the hall, and 98 percent of the crowd was high school kids drunker than hell on vodka and Sunny Delight. But both bands were insanely good that night.

  19. 19.

    Punchy

    But Sullivan LOOOOOOVES teh Googs, DougJ. You’re not really willing to risk your love affair over this….are you?

  20. 20.

    joe73112

    I agree the new reader is a pain… including the fact that the central reading pane is smaller, giving us less reading space. what Google is doing is standardizing the look and functions, in gmail, got to themes and choose the preview theme.. it looks just like reader…it is called preview because it is a preview of what gmail will look like for everyone soon. and that black and red theme will frame every google specific program…
    i use gmail but less and less.
    been using the new hotmail live… much more pleasant on the eyes, and vastly improved over previous iterations of hotmail.
    good readers are scarce.

  22. 22.

    Nevgu

    Get rid of your Mac and get a real computer for starters. One that the 99% use…not the computer illiterate 1%

  23. 23.

    RossInDetroit

    This is confusing. Everyone is – and should be – trending toward pages that work better on small screens, not worse. Unless Google plans to split the app into big monitor and smart phone versions and we’re seeing the desktop version now.

  24. 24.

    MonkeyBoy

    They just released the new google reader today. I would expect some fixes to its more annoying aspects to come shortly (for me scaling and some scrolling not working).

    At the support site many users are screamingly unhappy and demanding the old UI back.

    I’m going to give it a week before looking into Stylish/Greasemonkey fixes for google reader and only then considering some other RSS reader. The big advantage for me is that Google Reader is in the cloud.

  26. 26.

    DougJ

    @MonkeyBoy:

    I think I like NewsNetWire better anyway. The one trouble is that my computer is old and I can’t really have more than one or two applications open, so it’s a pain.

  27. 27.

    Linnaeus

    I never understood the mindset that an easier to use computer (for some people) was a bad idea. Well, actually, I think I do, but I don’t agree.

  28. 28.

    Linnaeus

    @MonkeyBoy:

    The big advantage for me is that Google Reader is in the cloud.

    That’s a significant advantage. I’d normally use Safari’s built-in reader, but that wouldn’t help if I wanted to read my RSS feeds away from home.

  30. 30.

    tBone

    +1 for Reeder if you’re looking for an app.

    Although I’m apparently in the very tiny minority, because I actually like the new Google Reader. I never used any of the sharing features anyway and I think the new design is a lot cleaner and easier to read.

    @RossInDetroit:

    This is confusing. Everyone is – and should be – trending toward pages that work better on small screens, not worse. Unless Google plans to split the app into big monitor and smart phone versions and we’re seeing the desktop version now.

    Google has had a mobile version of Reader for a long time – it’s my go-to RSS reader on both phone and tablet – and so far it doesn’t seem to have been affected by the makeover.

  31. 31.

    Martin

    @DougJ: Negvu lost $3,372 dollars in the market today (Dow 12,000, what happened? We were at 2nd base!) and had to buy his computer from BlueHippo.

  32. 32.

    ChrisZ

    I had no problem moving from Reader to Bloglines. Is there a reason you can’t just transfer the OPML file on a Mac?

  33. 33.

    DougJ

    @Martin:

    I think getting the cheap Dells and running Linux on them is probably a good idea if you like messing with computers. At least for desktops. It seems to me that for laptops, the Macs are better quality than everything but Lenovo so if you use it a lot, it’s not a bad deal.

  34. 34.

    RossInDetroit

    @tBone:

    That makes sense, then. I did not know that. I’ve avoided portable computing because I already spend too much time staring at a screen and sometimes need to force myself to be where I am and do what I’m doing.
    But you can see the layout of a lot of sites evolving toward a portable-friendly format if they don’t have a separate version for smartphones.

  35. 35.

    DougJ

    @ChrisZ:

    I can do it, but they have made it to complicated and I regard that as a bad sign. My theory is that if any initial phase of a new software takes more than a minute, then the thing probably is badly designed and will have other problems.

  36. 36.

    Linnaeus

    @DougJ:

    It seems to me that for laptops, the Macs are better quality than everything but Lenovo so if you use it a lot, it’s not a bad deal.

    My work computer is a Lenovo laptop. A bit old and a bit slow, but still a workhorse.

  37. 37.

    L. Ron Obama

    @DougJ: I don’t notice much of a usability difference in Reader except for it being uglier, although I have been using a CSS hack to increase the font size for some time.

    When I am on my iPhone or iPad I do use the mobile Reader version at http://google.com/reader/i/. tBone mentioned this above too. It does work on the desktop as well, but it looks like the keyboard shortcuts don’t work, so it may not be very useful.

    I moved to Reader for cloud features, so I can read RSS across 3 devices. I don’t want to have to buy a stupid app (or several) to do the same thing.

  38. 38.

    kilo

    +1 for NetNewsWire. Start with the freebie, move to the paid version when you commit.

    If you’re looking for one on the iPad, Pulse is nice – albeit limited to 60 feeds or so.

    The first person that makes an iCloud-syncing Mac/iPad RSS reader combo will get my money in a heartbeat.

  41. 41.

    L. Ron Obama

    Man, Reader really is seriously ugly now though. A “cleaner look” does not have to mean barebones 2001-era CSS sensibilities, guys.

  42. 42.

    RareSanity

    @DougJ

    Am I wrong to think that Google has gone so wrong—first with Buzz, then with this

    They are moving toward everything going through Google+

    Other than not being able to change the color scheme, I like the new layout of Reader.

  43. 43.

    Comrade Luke

    My fear wrt Gmail is that the get more obnoxious with the advertising.

    The Reader UI is part of a corporate-wide UI refresh, using this same theme. It’s really, really terrible. The things that bug me the most are the lack of explicit framing of the content (look at the Reader UI; there are no lines separating the content until you select an article), and the exaggerated amount of whitespace.

    I suspect the latter is a feature, that should enable them to put ads in that you won’t realize are ads until you select them.

    There’s one big, big thing keeping me in Reader right now: the Google Reader Full Feed extension. WIth it, you can expand many entries that are excerpted in RSS to their full text. I read all of Kthug’s blog entries this way.

    Indispensable imo.

  46. 46.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @burnspbesq:

    high school kids drunker than hell on vodka and Sunny Delight.

    heh, the proto-vodka and Red Bull? I can just hear it “I’ll have a Stoli-Sunny-D”

  47. 47.

    RareSanity

    @L. Ron Obama:

    By “layout” I meant the overall look of it.

    It’s not perfect, they still won’t let me resize the subscriptions frame, but generally I’m okay with it.

    @TooManyJens:

    I understand the “principle” behind them wanting real names only. However, I can’t help but thinking, “Is this really a hill you want to die on, Google?”

  48. 48.

    L. Ron Obama

    Meh, I’ll give it a couple days and if they don’t make it look readable, I’ll just make some user css / greasemonkey hacks. How inconvenient.

  50. 50.

    RareSanity

    I really wish that they would offer a “night mode” theme though…

    All of that white is pretty hard on the eyes, at night. But, I like it on Balloon-Juice…that’s a completely different use of white background…

  52. 52.

    Nutella

    Am I wrong to think that Google has gone so wrong—first with Buzz, then with this—that I should think about having an alternative to Gmail in case they shit that bed too?

    Possibly. Google’s going through big changes. They’re determined to out-FaceBook FaceBook. After two embarrassing false starts with social apps (Buzz and Wave) they’ve decided to go with Google+ as their base and will be integrating either everything or almost everything else with it.

    Unfortunately they’ve had a rough start with Google+, too, and have not fixed the issues before rolling it out to other apps like Reader (and Picasa and Blogger and who knows what next?) The main problem they’ve had with Google+ is identity. They’re determined to centralize all your information under one name, your ‘real’ name, and connect that with your credit cards so they can monetize your every keystroke/swipe.

    The problem they haven’t fixed is that the definition of ‘real’ name is quite complex in real life and different from what they want it to be. (They want it to be the same as your wallet name, the one on your credit cards.) They have shut off users who don’t conform to one particular clerk’s interpretation of their naming rules while refusing to specify their naming rules. Kee Hinckley said

    I am seriously tired of attempting to reverse engineer Google’s policies based on snippets of public statements and scattered reports of their behavior … there’s simply no excuse for this obfuscation. It doesn’t even have anything to do with pseudonyms, it hits absolutely anyone whose friends know them by something other than their wallet name.

    If you have anything important in any Google app, be sure to make frequent backups. They may wise up and settle this issue without shutting off your accounts and losing your data or they may not, so you should be prepared.

  53. 53.

    burnspbesq

    @Linnaeus:

    The newest version of Safari has a gizmo called Reading List built in (see the little eyeglass icon at the left end of the bookmarks toolbar?). This is, apparently, just like Instapaper.

  54. 54.

    PeakVT

    Google screwing up the UI of their services may be a trend. I use the MyMaps feature of GMaps a lot, and they introduced 4 or 5 bugs back in March, and then 3 more when they fixed most but not all of the first round of bugs. It’s definitely not one of their main offerings, but it’s still frustrating that Google would break what was working just fine, and leave it in a crippled state for so long. I find the current implementation of the search results for images to be annoying as well.

  56. 56.

    Son of Prog

    Don’t have a cc right now so I went with a freeware mac reader, Vienna. It’s alright, I liked the old Google Reader better, but the UI is so dreadful on the new version I exported the OPML file (downloaded as an .xml, I’m not super knowledgeable with this stuff so dunno if that’s a big deal) and imported it to Vienna, took thirty seconds, tops. Google made it look and sound ridiculously complicated because I guess they’re trending towards assholery.

  57. 57.

    RossInDetroit

    @Nutella:
    In Web 1.0 anonymity was a big plus. Now the serious money has decided that aggregating personal data adds value for them. I’m betting on the serious money to win.

  59. 59.

    burnspbesq

    @Comrade Luke:

    My fear wrt Gmail is that the get more obnoxious with the advertising

    .

    I feed my Gmail account into the mail app on my iPhone and iPad. Presto! No advertising.

  60. 60.

    Keith G

    Nothing on RSS, but after a year of excellent performance, Chrome is getting goofy. Flash errors, page bleed-throughs, video hang ups. Did I mention Flash errors?

    Edit

    @PeakVT: Word!

  62. 62.

    burnspbesq

    My biggest beef with the iOS mail app is that I can’t have different signatures for my different accounts. I’m sick of my family ragging on me for having a Circular 230 disclaimer (IRS-imposed mumbo-jumbo) in all of my personal email.

    Anyone know of a hack or third-party app that can help with this?

  63. 63.

    RossInDetroit

    @Keith G:

    Chrome is getting goofy.

    Yeah, ditto here. Suddenly not rendering Facebook properly, underlying app screens peeking through, unplayable videos. I sense another ‘upgrade’ coming to fix all this. With a fresh set of glitches included.
    Well, it’s free…

  69. 69.

    RossInDetroit

    @PeakVT:

    Chrome doesn’t render Fa$ebook properly? Hmm…

    Yeah, imagine our surprise. But I flushed the queue and it came back to normal. Just a coincidence I’m sure…

  70. 70.

    Percysowner

    I personally use Firefox’s Live Bookmarks coupled with the Live Click addon. It works on Macs and Windows and does what I need it to do. You can set time interval for retrieving new items on your RSS feed and then you mouse over them and you can see the headline. Live Click lets you see what has been updated by either changing the color when new items are added or if you prefer, showing the feed in bold. It is a neat little way of following RSS feeds and I can move through stuff quickly, but since I don’t know what you are used to, I don’t know if it will fit your needs.

  72. 72.

    Coastsider

    Feedly (www.feedly.com) is pretty good and it imports your google reader feeds. You can also access the feeds on android/iPhone/iPad.

  73. 73.

    Comrade Luke

    @burnspbesq: What you could do is get TextExpander, create a snippet that’s your mumbo jumbo signature to something like “.sig”. Then, when you are sending business mail, you can type “.sig” at the and and have all that crap automatically filled in.

    iOS5 supports snippets as well (Settings -> General -> Keyboard, Shortcuts), so you could just copy it from an old message you’ve sent, paste it into a new iOS5 snippet, and assign it to “.sig” there. That’s the free option; TextExpander costs money.

    Hope that helps!

  74. 74.

    Neros

    Another vote for NetNewsire. Even the free version is fantastic — and it syncs seamlessly with Google Reader so you can move back and forth effortlessly.

  77. 77.

    reid

    I really don’t understand the google redesigns. Too white, not good use of screen space, just kind of ugly. I was using a greasemonkey script to pretty up the old version a little bit; now I’m hoping for a new script to pretty it up a lot.

  79. 79.

    suzanne

    OT, but a very talented friend of mine is a finalist in Dwell Magazine’s Playhaus competition. Can you go vote for his “Fort House“, with the kid playing basketball in front? He’s in second place right now….

  81. 81.

    Matt

    I used netnewswire for years, but just recently switched to reeder (reederapp.com), which syncs with google reader just like nnw, but has all the polish you would hope for if nnw had been undergoing constant development. Both the mac and iPhone apps are great.

  83. 83.

    Martin

    Oh, I missed the punchline:

    Am I wrong to think that Google has gone so wrong—first with Buzz, then with this—that I should think about having an alternative to Gmail in case they shit that bed too?

    Yes, you should, if you don’t like Google+.

    Google went all-in on mobile ad revenue as their next big market and it’s not panning out – they’re dumping money in Android and not making money off of it (not to mention it’s getting raped by IP lawsuits). That was to be their platform, and it’s unravelling.

    They never built a proper platform (don’t take my word for it, take the folks in Google’s word.) and now they’re realizing that they need to fix that, and they’re fixing it around Google+, for good or bad.

    But if you like Google+, my guess is all of these changes to build a proper platform will be welcome.

  84. 84.

    RandyH

    Oh relax. Google Reader is good. They did an update today. It looks nice and it easier to read. They will figure out very quickly what your bitching is about. Personally, I don’t see your problems with it. There must be others in your predicament but I’m happy with the new version so far.

  85. 85.

    MonkeyBoy

    @RandyH:

    It looks nice and it easier to read.

    Except for those with vision problems and use something like the FireFox extension NoSquint to remember magnification on a site basis. The new GR won’t scale beyond 130%.

  87. 87.

    MonkeyBoy

    @Tim in SF:

    I use a custom Google page

    Well, it is nice that you want to share your screendump that gives your real name and that you are buying expensive gay sex toys but many users don’t want to be forced to give out that much information.

    much less being required to have good eye sight.

  89. 89.

    Camchuck

    Google reader mobile looks the same to me on the iPad. But it has been taking a lot longer to load since the update. Only difference i noticed is the +1 in place of the ‘like’ and ‘share’. Didn’t use those functions, so don’t care much.

  90. 90.

    Camchuck

    Google reader mobile looks the same to me on the iPad. But it has been taking a lot longer to load since the update. Only difference i noticed is the +1 in place of the ‘like’ and ‘share’. Didn’t use those functions, so don’t care much.

  92. 92.

    Decided Fence Sitter

    Whereas I had a large number of shares within my friends – and got a taste of what everyone else was reading, as we all had our interests – computers, cooking, politics, economics, security, etc.

    Now we all have to migrate somewhere, possibly Twitter or Facebook as we have a couple of “Fuck you Google, I’m not moving to Google+” or some other third party. Maybe we were a minority of users, but damn it, Reader was perfect, plus it didn’t interfere with reading updates on other social media.

  93. 93.

    Deuce MacInaugh

    @Xenos: There are a couple of active Diaspoa “pods” out there. I signed up for one out of curiosity, and was pleasantly surprised by it. As was the Google+ team, apparently, because G+ is pretty close to a rip-off of the Diaspora alpha release from last year…

  94. 94.

    Chris Andersen

    I will never understand why companies take established online products and make drastic changes to them and then just unleash them on their loyal customers. Why don’t they create beta sites first and let people try them out for a few weeks in order to get feedback?

    I propose we call this Netflixing.

  96. 96.

    Nonie

    Not sure if someone mentioned it yet, but I migrated all zillion and one of my feeds over to Bloglines in one chunk!

    Go to Settings, Reader Settings, Import/Export

    Then in Bloglines, go to Add Content, Import, navigate to the file you saved in the export above – and VOILA!

  97. 97.

    Scott Supak

    I used the shared items feed, via RSS graffiti, to post to Facebook. Now that that’s gone, I’ve had to create a new blog, called Scott Supak’s Shared Items, and instead of just clicking “share” now I have to “send to” blogger, and then post to that blog, and then RSS Graffiti posts that feed to FB. What a pain in the ass.

    http://supakshareditems.blogspot.com/

  98. 98.

    BrendanL79

    DougJ: you’re being hysterical. The colors are the same and I see exactly one red button, “Subscribe”, for adding new feeds.

    There is a size issue in that each entry has too much whitespace at top and bottom margins — I hope they will roll out a “compact” layout option like the new GMail has.

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