When Google ditched Reader, they told me how to export my OPML, so I did, and vowed to never again depend on a cloud service for something I could do with a local client app. I've moved from one to another over the years. At the moment I'm using Feeder on Android.<p>Likewise when they dropped Listen for podcasts, currently I'm on Antennapod. If I can get an app from f-droid, I prefer it.<p>I can live with backing up my OPML files whenever I add a blog or podcast, and having no web server for desktop use or tracking read/unread progress; I just only consume from my primary phone.
I actually saw this submission via Inoreader. It's got everything I want and need in a news reader. Been using it for years now and there's little I'd change about it. Each person has their own preferences, of course, but I recommend it highly.
A shout out for Tiny Tiny RSS[1] for a self-hosted feed reader. I used a heavily modified fork from years ago but the current version looks pretty good.<p>(I made a couple of really simple contributions back in the day but decided maintaining my own fork was the easy path. The maintainer has a reputation for being a bit prickly to deal with. He wasn't uncivil or anything, but it was clearly <i>his</i> project and that's just fine.)<p>[1] <a href="https://tt-rss.org/" rel="nofollow">https://tt-rss.org/</a>
When Google killed Reader I stopped trusting them at that point as I realized they'd kill everything to maintain control. I hate GOOG nowadays and hope they become less influential on the internet.
I was a heavy Google Reader user.<p>When it disappeared, I switched to NewsBlur.<p>NewsBlur is great but it lacks one particular feature: an RSS feed for a folder of blogs.
(or a category of blogs, potato - potahto)<p>So I switched to self-hosted FreshRSS.<p>It has all the features I want (plus, unlike NewsBlur, it's free) but it is Docker-based and I am already like 10 versions behind and I am too lazy/scared to learn how to upgrade it without destroying the Universe.<p>BoredReading has a fantastic UI and I absolutely love the approach and organization of feeds. Key shortcuts are cool, too.<p>If there is ever a self-hosted version that I can feed with my own stuff from scratch (ideally via an OPML file), I'd go for it immediately.
What had Google Reader that was amazing and no RSS existing today has is feed history: when you added a blog to Google Reader you could traverse the feed as if you added it from the beginning of the blog (intersection with the born of Google Reader).<p>BTW, I wrote something along the topic above in an article from 2011 [1].<p>[1] Extraction of Main Text Content Using the Google Reader NoAPI: <a href="http://blog.databigbang.com/extraction-of-main-text-content/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.databigbang.com/extraction-of-main-text-content/</a>
For those interested in "alternative" RSS Readers, I'd welcome you giving a go to my opinionated RSS (not only) reader - <a href="https://lenns.io" rel="nofollow">https://lenns.io</a>. It supports tracking articles by headlines in those cases when a blog or a website doesn't support RSS. Plus a few other goodies, like assigning priorities to your feeds (and topics) and limiting the number of posts per source.<p>Enjoy.
I'm living with Feedly. Reluctantly. I don't think it's very sticky and I'd happily switch to this thing (which is giving me 504 Gateway Time-out right now) if it's any better.
I have a project on my backlog to build "Google Reader" how it might have looked today, but Google is very slow with their Material Design 3 implementation for Web.