Time To Say Goodbye To Google Reader
Less than twenty-four hours from now, Google Reader will officially be no more. So, if you haven’t found an RSS reader alternative yet, you’ve only got a few hours left to do something about it. Matt Bernius already solicited ideas for alternatives to the soon-to-be late lamented Google Reader, and the leading contenders appear to be Feedly and The Old Reader. I’ve used both, and they both have their pluses and minuses. For the moment, though, I’m sticking with Feedly, which has gone a long way over the past several months in making changes that allow former Google Reader users to customize the look and feel of the site so it resembles what they’ve become used to from Google Reader. At the end of last week, a new alternative became available in the form of Digg Reader, which seems to be doing surprisingly well despite only having been in beta in the past week or so. So far, only Feedly has mobile apps for both iPhone and Andriod, but Digg says they will add to their iPhone app with one for Android in the very near future. Still in development is AOL Reader, which appears that it won’t be available until sometime in the future. There are also rumors that Facebook is working on its own RSS Reader.
Whichever choice you make, though, it’s strongly recommended that you go over to Google Takeout and download your Google Reader OPML files. It’s a fairly straightforward process and, at the end of it, you’ll have a Zip file on your hard drive with all your Google Reader data that you should be able to import into any reader of your choice in the future. This will likely be necessary because it’s unlikely after today that you will be able to use the “Import Your Google Reader Data” feature that Feedly, The Old Reader, and Digg are currently offering.
So, so long Google Reader. It was a good run. It’s too bad your parent didn’t do a better job of taking care of you.
I do most of my RSS reading at work. Unfortunately my employer is forcing us to use IE8, which both The Old Reader and Feedly do not support. For now, I’ll have to rely on IE8’s RSS subscription service to satisfy my reading needs. None of these solutions are really good.
Dumb question but hasn’t Microsoft ended support for IE8 already?
Yes, but many corporate IT departments don’t care, and they have tailored many of their internal sites for IE8.
Newsblur is another decent option. I’ve bounced between a few and Feedly has become my favorite. I absolutely love the look of it.
@DC Loser: I’ve been getting “you need to upgrade to a modern browser” notices from gmail for months on my work computer. I asked IT and got some ridiculously blatant lie about the web version of Citrix not being ready to update. When I asked him if management was stupid enough to believe that, he just smirked and walked away.
I’ve heard from three people who know about these things that Feedly is a good alternative for the time being.
What the hell is Google reader anyway?