Google Reader shutting down

This has been a long time coming. Four years ago I began work on my own feed reader, NewsBlur, and it's now a full-fledged Google Reader competitor. It's also a paid app and has been paying for itself nearly since the beginning.<p><a href="http://www.newsblur.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.newsblur.com</a><p>I hope HN finds NewsBlur useful, especially since it's got native mobile apps on iOS (iPhone+iPad), Android, Windows Phone, and Nokia MeeGo. Native story sharing was launched last Summer and I expect NewsBlur to be around for quite a while.<p>It's also fully open-source, in case you decide to build your own private community: <a href="http://github.com/samuelclay" rel="nofollow">http://github.com/samuelclay</a>.<p>I also have a full-scale re-design in the works, but if you can't get to the main site you can try using the beta site: <a href="http://dev.newsblur.com" rel="nofollow">http://dev.newsblur.com</a>

Google Reader is irreplaceable, it is not only about reading RSS. That is the easy part. It is about going back in time and accessing all past feeds in an organized way (it is difficult to rebuilt that from crawling and web scraping). If you add a blog now you can read articles that are not present in the current feed.<p>Google Reader is the core of my information diet. Not twitter. Thousands of blogs starred, liked, and commented. An interesting feature that you couldn't replace is automatic translation: reading a russian blog asmit was written in english. Once I shared one of its articles and one friend asked me if I knew russian or if it was a joke my share! Because obviously the share was in the original language.<p>Google is evil. While I can understand a business decision, there are ways to hand it over to other companies or organizations.<p>I share some of my previous criticism:<p>- 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><p>-Google Search NoAPI: <a href="http://blog.databigbang.com/google-search-no-api/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.databigbang.com/google-search-no-api/</a><p>- The Data Portability Fact Sheet: <a href="http://blog.databigbang.com/the-data-portability-fact-sheet/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.databigbang.com/the-data-portability-fact-sheet/</a><p>- Reverse Engineering and the Cloud: <a href="http://blog.nektra.com/main/2012/06/01/reverse-engineering-and-the-cloud/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.nektra.com/main/2012/06/01/reverse-engineering-a...</a>

That's the first Google service shutdown that I'm affected by.<p>Sad to see it go.<p>What do you guys recommend for replacement? I know about NewsBlur [1], but I never liked it that much.<p>I think I'm just looking for something that would emulate Reader's full-screen view as close as possible.<p>[1] <a href="http://newsblur.com" rel="nofollow">http://newsblur.com</a><p>edit: Here's what I consider an absolute must-have in RSS app:<p>- complete navigation with keyboard (j/k preferred)<p>- full screen mode (really, I don't need a sidebar of a fixed header all the time)<p>- feed view (not just list of items, show me excerpts!)<p>And I know I may be the weird one, but I really, <i>really</i> dislike readers that try to show me items directly from feeds webpage. I find it jarring and distracting when I have five totally different layouts flash before my eyes within 10 seconds (I skim headlines and then skip most of items in my feed).<p>And for the love of god, please, <i>please</i>, no goddamn 'WE LEARN WHAT YOU LIKE' or any kind of bullshit 'smart selection'. I selected my feeds myself, I can manage them just fine by myself, just get out of my way, please.

"over the years usage has declined"<p>That's because there was almost ZERO innovation done on this product. Very few (mostly visual) improvements, and very few new features. The latest posts on Google Reader blog are from 2011 <a href="http://googlereader.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">http://googlereader.blogspot.com/</a>

Pretty irritated at the way Google takes moderately successful services that can't possibly cost them all that much to keep running and puts them down the memory hole, to foster the happy illusion that everything that everything that Google does turns to gold.<p>I'm sure there's more engagement with Reader than Plus, with its millions of users who don't really use it (many of whom aren't even really aware that they are signed up for it).

What the fuck.<p>Later edit: Like many other will most likely do in their replies I'm also going to suggest an alternative that I've tried in the past. <a href="http://theoldreader.com/" rel="nofollow">http://theoldreader.com/</a><p>Later edit 2: They even added a nice pop-up now. <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/i.imm.io/Zg6A.png" rel="nofollow">https://s3.amazonaws.com/i.imm.io/Zg6A.png</a>

Google should open source it. Seriously. Donate the code base to the open source community, and let someone run with it.<p>With some luck it'd attract enough developers to keep the project alive. Or maybe somebody would figure out a way to monetize the effort. Either option, it'd be much better than just let the service die.<p>It's not unprecedented. Google did exactly this with Google Wave.<p>Sadly, I don't think this will ever happen. This project is too small to justify the resources needed to clean up the code and solve any dependencies. And, differently than Chromium / Android / Google Wave, Google Reader is not a platform / protocol / OS. It's just yet-another pet project for a company that - sooner or later - has to justify its investment to Wall Street.<p>This isn't the first, and certainly won't be the last, product that Google creates just to later destroy it, when it discover it has no business or economic justification.<p>Keep this in mind when developing for Mirror API, or anything else that is not core for the company.

I'll bet you anything the catalyst behind this is in some way related to G+, the introduction of which has led to a steady removal of features from Reader.<p>This news is really rubbing me the wrong way; I've been a long-time Google customer, even a 'Google hipster' as my friends would say. I'm an early-adopter that often beta tests. I was the only one at work with GMail when it was released, and was always out of invites that first year. Same for GVoice (which I've had since GrandCentral), GWave, Apps for personal domains, and Chrome (where I've posted many bug reports that were accepted).<p>I've been with Reader since the year it came out, though I never used any other RSS reader -- I'd tried several, but they all sucked; Reader was just a breath of fresh air, "cloud" based before that was even a buzzword, and I've introduced many a friend to its wonderful utility. My favorite feature was the _'note in reader'_ bookmarklet, which they killed in favor of crappy G+, but now they're going to outright kill the entire product?<p>My only hope, if they don't grant a stay of execution, will be that they open-source the code such as they did with Wave. At least then I'll have some hope of retaining my most-used web app of all time.<p><pre><code> From your 117 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 398 items, clicked 189 items, starred 7 items, and emailed 0 items. Since October 26, 2010 you have read a total of 20,685 items. </code></pre> (I think 10/2010 is when I was finally able to transition my normal GMail account to a GAFYD account, thus why the metrics stop there)<p>Needless to say, I use this app 10x more than any other, including email (edit: ok I might be exaggerating).<p>Also, it looks like the Google Operating System (unofficial blog) recognized the distress signals back in December with "Google Reader, 'Constantly on the Chopping Block'"[1].<p>Where's my pitchfork...<p>1. <a href="http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2012/12/google-reader-constantly-on-chopping.html" rel="nofollow">http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2012/12/google-reader-const...</a>

I hate saying this, as it sounds like I'm just bitter, but this really could be enough to finally leverage me off of google. Reader is <i>by far</i> my most used app of theirs. Plus is garbage in comparison.

I've been a Google Reader user since the beginning, and have had an uneasy sense that this was coming for a while. I started building a replacement for it that fits my needs a couple months ago.<p>It's not ready yet, but I thought I might as well toss up a launchrock page and collect email addresses from other folks who might be interested: <a href="http://signup.viafeeds.com" rel="nofollow">http://signup.viafeeds.com</a><p>Here are my guiding principles:<p>1. It's going to cost money. I refuse to 'lose money on each customer, but make it up on volume.' I imagine that for more casual users, this'll be a nominal amount. I won't compromise on this because....<p>2. I want to build something sustainable, and have it be enough of a profit center for me that I'm willing to focus on it and continually improve it for years to come.<p>3. I want to build something that I'll love more than Google Reader. I spend at least an hour a day in Google Reader, and want to make sure that whatever I build has the simplicity of Reader.<p>I have a lot of interesting ideas I want to try out around inclusion of contextual information and the ability to easily save or share articles or clips of articles in multiple ways. From conversations I've had with friends in the journalism world, there's a real need for a product like this, especially one with a legitimate business model.<p>Regarding where this fits in relative to NewsBlur: I think NewsBlur is doing a lot of interesting stuff, but it feels heavyweight to me, compared to Google Reader. I want a very minimalistic, "just the facts, ma'am" experience.<p>What do you want to see in a news feed product? Where do you think Google Reader could've or should've been in 2013 if Google had properly maintained it?<p>Anyway, to reiterate, if you're interested, head over here and enter your email address: <a href="http://signup.viafeeds.com" rel="nofollow">http://signup.viafeeds.com</a> (I <i>just</i> created the domain an hour ago, so hopefully it'll have propagated to your DNS server).

Weird decision. Judging by my logs, and those of several other sites I know about, it still has quite significant usage, though I don't know what their threshold is. For example, my own blog has 12x as many Google Reader subscribers as NewsBlur subscribers. Perhaps even with significant usage, that usage wasn't monetizable, and the what-people-read data wasn't valuable enough to keep it operating?<p>Good news for the competition, anyway: Google Reader being pretty good yet completely free and not (obviously) monetized occupied a lot of that space, which is now freed up.<p>edit: In fact, I see NewsBlur is completely unresponsive now, presumably due to sudden interest.

Former Reader PM here, no longer at Google. Having fought many times to keep Reader alive, it's worth considering whether a large enough outcry would lead them to reconsider.<p>White House Petition!

I've been an active, daily user of Google Reader since the beginning. I knew this was coming, but it still doesn't feel right because unlike other Google properties that I don't use, it's part of my information flow.<p>What I'd really like to see here on HN is a post comparing other RSS contenders like NewsBlur and The Old Reader.

NOOOOO!<p>It is my most accessed browser URL.<p>It is the primary method I peruse new stuff on the web.<p>It is the only RSS app that can handle my volume of RSS subscriptions (all others choke and sputter once the feed total is greater than a couple hundred).

&#62; CalDAV API will become available for whitelisted developers (only)<p>Wasn't a big brouhaha about windows phone only supporting Exchange protocol and not the open standard that's used by everyone: CalDAV? Oh, and now Google is discontinuing it! Let's see how much longer Exchange will last...

Just want to repeat here my tweets: Maybe GoLang will be retired in August? AngularJS in September? GAE in October? "Backed by Google" is a joke now. I just can't trust Google anymore. Google Reader was important part of my day - source of information. Google apps are too UNSTABLE to use.

One more for the list of killed Google services:<p>Code Search, Google Search API (twice), Google Video, Wave, Buzz, Google Labs, Google Desktop, Google Notebook, Google Sets, Google Squared, Google Catalogs, Google Answers, Audio Ads, Google Base, Browser Sync, City Tours, Click-to-Call, Google Dashboard Widgets, Dodgeball, Jaiku, Google Mashup Editor, Google Directory, GOOG-411, Joga Bonito, Aardvark, Lively, Music Trends, Ride Finder, Google Shared Stuff, Sidewiki, FastFlip, Google Translate API, Writely, Google Health, PowerMeter, Google University Search, U.S. Government Search, Slide products (Disco, Pool Party, Video Inbox, Photovine, Slideshow, SuperPoke! Pets), Google Pack, Image Labeller and Google Dictionary.<p>Friends don't let friends rely on free web services.

Ugh. I was living in fear of this happening for the past 3 years.<p>I will never trust Google again.<p>Apparently the only Google service I don't have a good alternative for is Google Books (for search; kindle, torrented bookwarez, and scribd works fine for the raw PDFs)

I'm very disappointed by this. I use Reader to manage all my RSS feeds. I check Reeder on my phone more than I use any other app.<p>It just goes to show, if you're using Google software that has no advertising and isn't used to sell advertising, it could end any day, and it probably will some day.<p>I'll be purchasing a Feedafever license, which also happens to work with Reeder. <a href="http://www.feedafever.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.feedafever.com/</a>

This is a sad news, one of my favourite RSS reader is closing. Google Reader is likely the site I browse the most, and I always have one tab open on it. Also, my phone sync with RSS with it.<p>I guess it's time to start searching for a new RSS reader. Too bad that I already did it a while ago, and every time I went back to Google Reader.<p>The biggest problem for me with other feed reader is that they try to add too many features to the simple format that RSS is. No, I don't care about "hot news", and I don't care about "suggested stories", I just want to read the feed I've added to it. My brain is good enough to skim through that list by just reading the title.<p>And most other reader lack integration with a mobile platform (Android/iOS/WP). Yes, sometimes they have a mobile client, but usually not nearly good enough as 3rd party clients.<p>Hopefully they'll change their mind, but I doubt it. Time to force myself. Sigh.

People have said repeatedly that RSS is dead, and that's apparently true, but I've been wondering for a few years now what has replaced it? It's not like social networks provide the same kind of service, really.<p>So is getting updates from people and projects you care about really such a niche thing? Have I missed some other huge channel that supersedes RSS? Or are we about to actually lose something profound here?<p>Kudos to Newsblur, which I never heard of before today. I'd like to sign up for a paying membership, but it seems like this is exactly what everyone else is doing, so servers are dead...

These web companies prove over and over again that it's not possible to trust them with your data. What would stop Google from killing your gmail or docs when they don't see it as valuable anymore?<p>The worst part is how the big guys kill all competition with their free products leaving few alternatives for users.

F^&#38;@ D^&#38;@ IT! ^%&#38;( ()&#38;@&#38; @&#38;!^$&#38;!!!!!<p>Of ALL the things they would shut-down, they have to kill Reader!?? Nooooooooooooo!! Aaargggghhhh....<p>Oh well, guess it's back to RSSOwl[1]. Maybe this will even motivate me to get involved in hacking on RSSOwl a bit and help those guys out.<p>This will probably also serve as the impetus for me to start adding some Reader like features to Neddick[2]. That was always sort of in the back of my mind, so why not go ahead and jump on it?<p>[1]: <a href="http://rssowl.org/" rel="nofollow">http://rssowl.org/</a><p>[2]: <a href="https://github.com/Fogbeam/Neddick" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/Fogbeam/Neddick</a>

Mixed emotions.<p>I remember at the end of college and right after (I graduated in 2008), many of my close friends were on GReader and we would share and communicate directly through it about interesting things we were reading. It was an awesome way to interact, and nothing has replaced it for my group and me. Google's implicit (although I could be reading their intentions incorrectly) strategy of trying to route that interaction through GPlus did not work for us. Too much overhead and it never materialized. Now we just use email, which is fine. So on the whole it's a type of social interaction that has simply gone. It's a shame, because I think that Google could have done something with this. But they are just one company and the number of innovative things they're doing is really impressive.<p>Maybe this will clear the way for a competitor that replaces the social interaction component and innovates on it. I'd be a user for sure.

I use Reader's "star" functionality to keep track of stuff that I want to refer back to later. And, AFAICT, you <i>can't</i> easily export your star history. You can export your subscriptions, but not the stars.<p>The only approach that I've seen to exporting stars is to use the fact that Reader will create a feed of just your starred items. Then you can view that feed in some other reader and <i>manually mark each one</i> there (ugh).<p>Edit: Oh, and the read/not read history is, AFAICT, also not exportable. And I do use this as well.

Hi HN, my co-founder and I have been working on a Google Reader clone in the last few weeks, we're not quite ready to launch, but would love to get feedback as soon as we've opened up our beta:<p><a href="http://beta.newsmaven.co" rel="nofollow">http://beta.newsmaven.co</a><p>We promise to have all the basics of Google Reader covered, including importing your feed data (or as much as possible through the API).<p>Of course, if you're looking for something to move to immediately, NewsBlur is an awesome product :)

<i>While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined.</i><p>That will happen if you stop developing it and ignore requests for new features. Conesus has done a good job with Newsblur and I'll try going back to that, but I really wanted to have Gmail-style filtering of my RSS feeds in Google Reader, to to mention being able to maintain my sharing/tracking data within the Google ecosystem.<p>This is a major failure on Google's part. Complaining about a declining user base when the product was left to stagnate amounts to blaming the users for the company's lack of vision. Why Google would want to abandon this extremely rich source of behavorial data and trend emergence is beyond me; it suggests a loss of direction, for which short-term reactivity is no substitute. Put another way, you can't lead the herd by following it faster. I am shocked.<p>As I say, I've used Newsblur before and thought it OK - at the time I just somewhat preferred Reader's cosmetics. So the above is not just a reaction to the necessity to switch platforms.

So I love Google Reader, been using it from the very beginning.<p>I love offline clients, quite often I'm stuck in a remote location where 3G has yet to penetrate so I like to have a couple of hundred items to read which will sync when I reach connectivity again.<p>I need the RSS service to track what I've read across multiple devices and have the client support offline usage. Any recommendations?

Bummer. I imagine there will be a few decent alternatives, but if the biggest game in RSS reader town is shutting down, how long will websites continue to provide and expose RSS feeds to the public?

I'll take the blame for this.<p>I use Google Reader heavily, but I never go to the web pages. I have native apps on my desktop and mobile devices and just use Reader to keep my subscriptions synced.<p>No ad views, no service.

I depend on Google Reader for keeping up with Hacker News. I'm going to be in a world of hurt now. I use iReadG on the iPhone to browse headings and then star the Hacker News posts I want to read later when I get back to the computer.<p>iReadG has been great because it will download all the rss feed data and allow me to browser it and star items without an Internet connection which is great for those times on the road when there is no signal. I have no idea what I'll be able to use to replicate this functionality now that Google Reader is going down.<p>Very very sad.

Does anyone know of an extraction tool to pull down all your starred items (in addition to feeds) into some semi-structured format -- even just a big, single HTML file?<p>I've got YEARS of starred items "saved" in Reader. I use it everyday to stay abreast of news (1000+ items / day). Between Google Reader and iGoogle... Google has deprecated most of the tools I use on a regular basis. This makes me seriously question using Gmail and Apps for Business.<p>EDIT: Just RTFM'd. Looks like Google TakeOut will let me export most of the stuff I care about. Still, this sucks. I'll probably just keep using it and hope (like iGoogle) the deprecation date gets pushed back. Otherwise... productivity boon due to lack of RSS feeds.<p>Also.... Feedburner users should see the writing on the wall!

Perhaps the "decline in usage" had something to do with the thoughtless redesign they implemented.

Say it ain't so. I use this everyday at work on my text only internet browser.<p>This is the first internet product shutdown I've ever been affected by.<p>Maybe I don't need to spend so much time reading up on random news. Who knows, it might be good for me.<p>But I will miss you.

Alternative list on Quora: <a href="http://www.quora.com/Google-Reader/What-are-the-current-multiplatform-2013-besides-the-ones-listed-below-alternatives-to-Google-Reader-where-I-can-transfer-my-starred-items-feeds-and-unread-items-In-response-to-A-second-spring-of-cleaning?__snids__=105010833&#38;__nsrc__=5" rel="nofollow">http://www.quora.com/Google-Reader/What-are-the-current-mult...</a>

I'm really sad to see it go, it's the one service I use more than anything else. Probably more than email.

Well, this is truly the apocalypse. To me, Google Reader IS the internet.....(It's how I got to this Hacker News post). Not pleased at all.

bastards. they never seem to realize how much they damage our trust with these actions. it effects all of their future products. I don't trust them anymore.<p>anyway feedly has a replacement coming soon:<p><a href="http://blog.feedly.com/2013/03/14/google-reader/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.feedly.com/2013/03/14/google-reader/</a><p>&#62; We have been working on a project called Normandy which is a feedly clone of the Google Reader API – running on Google App Engine. When Google Reader shuts down, feedly will seamlessly transition to the Normandy back end. So if you are a Google Reader user and using feedly, you are covered: the transition will be seamless.<p>&#62; If you are a Google Reader, give feedly a try before July 1st, and you will be able to migrate seamlesly

Sad, sad news. I get (I think) 300 items/day on my Google Reader and I <i>always</i> get to "inbox zero" - a bit of OCD maybe. It is my most visited URL ever and I've used it every day, several times a day, since 2006. Of course I would even pay a fair amount of money for it, given the time I've spent on it, but Google's not interested. I am currently trying The Old Reader and while the interface is nice (well... generic Bootstrap, which is pleasant, and better than newsblur) it's really slow with my amount of feeds. Sigh...

Well done, it affects me a lot, it was one of two services I'm totally dependant from Google. The second one is Gmail, if I wasn't so lazy I would try to do something about it too, I'm not confortable with my mails stored at Google / in the US anymore.

One not mentioned yet is <a href="http://selfoss.aditu.de/" rel="nofollow">http://selfoss.aditu.de/</a><p>It is an open source self hosted rss reader with a responsive skin. I'll be migrating tonight nad since it is open source I can contribute when I run into issues!

Okay. So I need a replacement website that also has an Android app. And preferably a desktop app (or syncs with FeedDemon).<p>Any suggestions?

I won't bitch about this decision, because after all I got more than my money's worth. I do wonder if the change doesn't weaken the whole Google "Suite" though. Google (until quite recently anyway) seems to be focusing a great deal on G+. The vast majority of my G+ posts come from Reader; I doubt I'll be posting to G+ in future. I know G+ can live without me, but as far as I can tell the only value in G+ comes from its integration with the rest of the "Suite". If Facebook or Amazon had been in this situation, instead of killing Reader, they would have focused it more and more on feeding, promoting, and otherwise bolstering their other services, probably to the detriment of actually reading RSS. Probably to the point where some, <i>but not all</i> users would have become disgusted and quit using Reader anyway. Google doesn't do that sort of thing, which I guess is to its credit.

I'm here with Alan Noble who runs engineering at Google Australia and ran the Google Reader project until 18 months ago. They looked at open sourcing it but it was too much effort to do so because it's tied to closely to Google infrastructure. Basically it's been culled due to long term declining use.

I have thousands of websites inside Google Reader which serves me as a personal sub-internet. With archive and quick search within feeds was so much valuable for me. It was the only service of Google that i use second only to Gmail.<p>I think they made a quick short headed cost analysis in this, that archive and search functionality needs server power. Actual userbase does not provide enough money juice to balance.<p>Now, let the alternatives pour in.

There is a whole app ecosystem built around Google Reader. This is going to be ugly.<p>I actually it daily but only through apps like Reeder.

I do hope this is a blessing in disguise!<p>Google killed with their free Reader the biggest part of the market around RSS. Switching off Reader opens up this market which should be still large enough for a few indies to find their niche. Maybe even reinvigorating RSS while doing so.

<a href="http://bringgooglereaderback.com/" rel="nofollow">http://bringgooglereaderback.com/</a>

This is my most used Google service after the search and mail (it's probably on par with Youtube). Shame to see it go! I can't see how it was hurting them so much with users declining. Surely the more time staring at the Google website header the better?

Still he best way to read content on the web, really sad to see it go.<p>Adding on to this:<p>What he hell do I do with my starred items now, it's literally the best collection of content I have curated in my life and I reference it all the time.<p>edit: petition to keep it open <a href="http://www.change.org/petitions/google-please-don-t-kill-google-reader" rel="nofollow">http://www.change.org/petitions/google-please-don-t-kill-goo...</a>

Literally my favorite thing on the internet. Revolutionized how I consume information. I found out about this via Google Reader!<p>Google has fallen very far.

I'm stunned. I was depending on this service to document my life and what I know. I simply can't fathom that they are going to shut it off. If this happens I'm going to move everything I have on google off of it. I put too much trust in them for them to pull this crap. This is an evil move. It exudes evil. It damages my productivity and steals my time. Ughhhh.

I literally said "Awwww, whaaaat?".<p><a href="http://tt-rss.org" rel="nofollow">http://tt-rss.org</a> as a replacement seems the winner for me so far.

NewsBlur may have a solution for end users but there seems to be no recourse for the huge impact this has to the dev community.<p>With Google Reader as an API devs had a way to get historical data on practically any RSS feed going back many years. That ability will be lost/gone forever. Even if Google sunsets the reader app, I wish they'd keep this data source open. Its hugely valuable and I don't think there is any alternative to it.<p>I think that having cached all this data on their server over the years of their own free will, they've put themselves to be in a position where they have a somewhat fiduciary responsibility of keeping this data alive and open.

This is affecting me similarly to the announcement of Yahoo killing Delicious. Both Delicious and Google reader became for me definitions of their services. As a result of this all alternatives do not feel right (Even if they're technically more full featured).<p>I have swapped Delicious with Diigo (After shopping around many alternatives). I really hope the process of replacing Google reader isn't as long or as painful as that was.<p>The ending of Delicious and Google Reader is the end of an era of my use of the Internet. I wonder if it's a function of my age that I now see that as a sad and worrying development rather than an opportunity to be grasped.

While I am an avid Google Reader user, I think this is good news. Their product has stagnated over the past few years, yet few competitors emerged. Hopefully this creates a void that a better service or set of services can fill.

I can use another RSS Reader (and probably won't like it nearly as much as Google Reader), but I worry that the Google Reader audience is so big, and that so many will likely not bother finding another worthy RSS aggregator, that some blogs who get most of their traffic from GR users will throw in the towel when their readership declines.

I've used it every day for years... Anyone run an instance of <a href="http://www.feedafever.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.feedafever.com</a>? How is it?

I'm seriously digging Feedly right now. Took 12 seconds to get into it and everything just makes sense. I wish I had found this ages ago.<p>No need to backup your feeds, it uses your google account for now.

There's tt-rss [1] if you want to host it yourself.<p>[1] <a href="http://tt-rss.org/" rel="nofollow">http://tt-rss.org/</a>

I wonder if it's just a Google Reader issue or RSS are fading out. I'm not a huge RSS user but I would be very concerned by RSS decline, it was one of the rare inter-operation standard that was very positive, easy, clean, and helped a lot programmers to put things together.

The real winner here might be Prismatic. They already do awesome machine learning based discovery. If they'd add an RSS <i>reader</i> (not just RSS feeds into their discovery machine) they'll get every one of millions of users moving off Google Reader.<p>Due Disclosure: Though I have no official connection to Prismatic, founder Bradford Cross is a friend and I am biased to Prismatic. It is awesome. Try it at <a href="http://getprismatic.com/" rel="nofollow">http://getprismatic.com/</a>

If you want a light and simple reader with a similar UI, try Tiny Tiny RSS. It's self-hosted, so it won't stop working when it's no longer "profitable", and it has all the basic features (folders, keyboard navigation, etc) without clutter. I've been really happy with it since I switched from GReader, a few months ago.<p><a href="http://tt-rss.org/redmine/projects/tt-rss/wiki" rel="nofollow">http://tt-rss.org/redmine/projects/tt-rss/wiki</a>

Wow, very surprising. One of the few Google apps I access several times per day.<p>Edit: I think there's a 50/50 chance this decision gets reversed.<p>Edit: looks like <a href="http://feedly.com" rel="nofollow">http://feedly.com</a> is going to get my vote for now.

Lessons for the week: It's not yours unless it's 1) On your machine [a], and 2) DRM free.<p>--<p>[a] As long as your machine remains "yours", i.e. free of the same restrictions.

Basically every Reader-alternative site is getting its servers slammed tonight. This makes me wonder about Reader's "declining usage."

I've started a Slant comparison page for Google Reader replacements, hopefully we can crowd source a good, feature-by-feature comparison of the replacement apps to help decide. <a href="http://slant.co/topics/what-is-the-best-alternative-to-google-reader/opinions/the-old-reader" rel="nofollow">http://slant.co/topics/what-is-the-best-alternative-to-googl...</a>

I'd urge everyone to give Readertron (readertron.com) a try. It was built by programmer (and good friend of mine) who was frustrated when Google nerfed the ability to share among friends within Google Reader. It's a work in progress, but at least you can share articles among friends again.<p>He's also very responsive to requests for features.

Come on Microsoft, this is a good opportunity for you - Bing Reader. Make it happen.

Reeder, my favorite iOS and Mac news app, that includes support for Fever (<a href="http://feedafever.com/" rel="nofollow">http://feedafever.com/</a>), a news aggregation and evaluation service I’ve always wanted to try. If you are looking to leave Google Reader, this may be the combination you’re looking for.

Wow this one hurts. They took down another Google service I loved, Google Notebook (<a href="http://www.google.com/googlenotebook/faq.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/googlenotebook/faq.html</a>). I have no idea why I loved it. It was just so easy to make lots of quick text documents without the fluff and it was fast. I used it despite the existence of Evernote and other online documentation services. I still haven't found a suitable replacement though OneNote comes real close.<p>I don't know what I'm going to do about this. I guess the reality is that social won and RSS is dead. Or at least social is much more monetizable.<p>I've tried so many other different RSS aggregators but kept coming back to Google Reader. It worked well, had minimal fluff, and was fast.<p>R.I.P. Google Reader

I spend more actual time in Reader than any other Google application including Gmail. This bites.<p>I'm open to alternatives, but I haven't seen any I could really latch on to.

It's unfair for Google to claim usage has been decreasing since it broke the social aspect of Greader (which was the part I loved the most) which I think is a major factor in declining usage. I definitely saw less content that my friends on Greader used to share. My usage of the product dropped after that, but it was still useful enough I wanted to keep using it. This is probably one of the most shameful episodes in google product history. I bet they're rationalizing away all the feedback from upset users too. They should at least let someone spin off the product into a startup. Most startups would die to have the user base of Google reader. Just because Google doesn't care about it, doesn't mean there is no market to be served.

I've been working on a replacement for a year now. It's open to the public. Get it while it's hot<p><a href="http://1kpl.us/" rel="nofollow">http://1kpl.us/</a>

I use Google Reader for one very simple reason - I'm already signed into Google. It's on my phone, it's on all my computers . I don't want to have to use yet another bloody website just to manage something as simple as an RSS feed. I like Reader because it as simple, it worked and it was everywhere I needed it. The fact that it's retiring just because people are not using it is a misconception - I've managed to get a fairly large number of people using Google Reader, none of which had ANY idea it existed before. As a few others have said in the thread, the "declined usage" is no fault of the product itself but through absolutely no promotion of it from Google.

This is going to be a huge pain for me. There was a decent infrastructure built on top of google reader (not only apps that let you log in and view your feeds on different devices). I constantly use ifttt to send starred articles to my evernote.

May I say, Aaeaarrghhhhhhhhh! This was ( I speak in the past tense, even though death does not happen until July 1st ) one of the few reliable guideposts about the internet.<p>Google reader,of the RSS readers, you were the best, reliable, unencumbered by partisanship, unflavored by ideology. You were the best. Too bad, I must say goodbye, too bad I must go to newsbeuter or some other webreader, too bad you must die.<p>Truly I hate google, I hate what Google has become, I love the web, I love what the web was supposed to be. I love RSS <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS</a> and I will mourn you when you are gone.

I guess they couldn't monetize RSS. I would have taken an ad-supported version. Nobody would probably click the ads though.

Beware! This app is a gazillion times simpler than Google Reader.<p>I'm putting this out there in case anybody finds it useful. I made it years ago but never got around to promoting it. The idea was an online bookmarking app that tells you when the bookmarked pages have changed, and for technical reasons it eventually turned into a simple news feed reader.<p>It also supports drag and drop and for browsers with side bars (damn you Chrome!), it works... in the side bar.<p>I've moved onto other things but if you're really into it, get in touch and I'll try to move your data from Google Reader.<p><a href="http://bookmarkchamp.com/" rel="nofollow">http://bookmarkchamp.com/</a>

List of Google Reader alternatives <a href="http://alternativeto.net/software/google-reader/?platform=online&#38;license=free" rel="nofollow">http://alternativeto.net/software/google-reader/?platform=on...</a>

Damn. Reader was very useful for keeping up with academic journals and flagging articles for further consideration.

Are there any alternative sources of archival RSS feeds like those that Google Reader (unofficially) provides?

Let me see how I can delicately sum up my feelings about this: "Google, you Bastard!"<p>I think they announced this while the news cycle is wall-to-wall New Pope Mania to cover up this appalling summery execution :)

Yet another example why I never built a service or app relying on any Google product, service or API.

This is going to be a problem. Reader is fairly important to me.<p>I'm dropping Google a note and offering to pay a subscription if they continue services. Probably won't make a dent, but worth a try.

Obligatory White House petition: <a href="http://wh.gov/oRoJ" rel="nofollow">http://wh.gov/oRoJ</a>

I created a poll to keep track of the best alternative: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5373538" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5373538</a>

Why are they shutting it down? I mean heaps of people must still use it. I bet a shit load of people use for Google Alerts as well, lots of businesses.<p>Far if it costed too much, i bet people would be happy to fork out $10 a year for it?<p>I've been using it daily for the past 4 years, to be honest nothing comes that close to it, and most likely the majority of people who use RSS readers use Google Reader.<p>Also now most of the iOS/Android apps are fucked now since they all use Google Reader.<p>Tldr; Google are dongies.

Alright Google, I'll make a deal with you:<p>Keep Reader alive and I'll CONSIDER using G+<p>Until then, I'm not going to touch you.

First word came out of my mouth looking at this in Google Reader of course is, FUCK!

i was especially interested in the history function of Google Reader. i could look up old items even if they were not starred, it was enough if they passed through Google Reader.<p>And there is no option to save this data. Or is there?

I use NetNewsWire (an iOS app) every day, and it interfaces with Google Reader very nicely. Very sad that Google has made this decision - I will have to look into the alternatives. Hopefully they are even better! :)<p>Edit/Update: I'm probably part of the problem. I never click ads - maybe they just had too many freeloaders like me? :) Weirdly, I also never block ads. I just don't click them.

I (and it seems a lot of others) will be sad to see reader go.<p>I presume this death announcement doesn't meet the criteria for a HN black banner though.

I'm a huge fan of Netvibes - been using it for several years now. It has a single feed based view like most other RSS readers, but in my opinion the newspaper view is where it shines. I can quickly skim several dozen feeds with the scroll of a mouse - it's great if you're the kind of person who likes to take in a lot of info at once.

I love Reader and hate that it's going away. A pox on Plus I say.

I wonder if bit by bit ending secondary products like this doesn't separate Google from its customers. Part of my reason for not using search services like Bing is that I'm tied to Google by their secondary products such as Reader. The end of Reader will loosen Google's hold on me. As will the end of iGoogle.

I used to use Google Reader. Feed count rose and rose to the point I stopped using it. For many many months I'm checking only LWN and HN sites manually for CS/IT-related stuff - I don't feel like I lost anything. So cannot really complain about losing Google Reader now, but I think that this decease decision is strange.<p>I may reevaluate feed idea when I see intelligent reader that will show me early the most interesting stories from my subscriptions and will do it with a style. Reading must be a pleasure, not pain. Typographically web is a horrible place, there is so much that can and should be improved. Feeds should be your better (i.e. correctly) looking versions of the texts you can find on the web.<p>Google Reader Plus extension improved a bit comfort of using GR, thanks to multi-column view for instance, but it wasn't enough to keep me using GR.

This is very sad. :-( That's like 3 hours of my day every day.

Google is betting on Google+ being the future platform for general content publishing and consumption, so RSS in general, and Google Reader in particular, are effectively competitors of Google+. I wouldn't be surprised if Blogger was shutdown (or subsumed by Google+) 5 years from now.

We think RSS is far from dead. We've built a free reader that lets you put your feeds into a magazine style, highly visual page: Kuratur.com<p>This isn't a traditional email-inbox-style feed reader. It's like Flipboard for your feeds, on the web.<p>In beta - feedback warmly welcomed.<p>Also, very interested in talking to RSS fanatics.

This is another reminder that if Google does a service for free, there is likely a business to be had in making a paid version, simply for the inevitable moment that they kill the free service. Think paid Google+, paid GMail, paid search engine maybe? You get the idea.

Is there a RSS reader which incorporates some ML learning algorithms to determine which articles I'd probably like, basing on what others (ones having similar taste) click? That was only thing that would make me abandon Google Reader if it weren't closing anyway.

I think we all saw this coming when G+ took over some of Reader's functionality.<p>I've been working on a news solution of my own, Scoopinion, since 2011. It's a discovery engine that ranks articles based on how closely they've been read. Users install a browser extension that lets them track their own reading (within a set of whitelisted sites). It's a little bit of quantified self for news. The data is used for recommendations and to help journalists in their work.<p>It's not a drop-in replacement for Reader since you don't get the full firehose of headlines from your feeds, only the most engaging stories.<p><a href="https://www.scoopinion.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.scoopinion.com</a>

This is such a sad news for lots of specialized website (including Google blogs!!!). For sure they will see some trafic impact. BTW, Google+ is too much time consuming per unit of information read, so I will never replace Reader by Plus.

This is a disaster for Google. Elites are mobile. The empire collapses after they leave.

HN deaded this when I tried to submit it: <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/robf4/googles-lost-social-network" rel="nofollow">http://www.buzzfeed.com/robf4/googles-lost-social-network</a><p>I don't know why. It's a great eulogy for Reader, written in 2012.

whoa. big move. can we somehow petition against this? and maybe even move this off as an alternative open source, driven by community? Whack some ads on Google Reader and you might make money out of it Google... but don't remove this.

This affects me in a huge way. I spend at least a couple of hours in Reader every day. I'd even be ok if they found a way to integrate Reader into Google+ in a more than just a superficial way and somehow and made it super social. They seem to be hellbent on making Google+ work.. so here's a perfect way to make me spend more time there! Make Google Authorship work with Greader then allow me to follow specific authors and get only their RSS feeds (instead of blanket following whole websites). Use G+ as a commenting system behind my RSS subscriptions, giving Disqus a run for its money. Ugh so many possibilities... :(

I would gladly pay for Google Reader. It is my most visited website. This is so sad.

what the fuck google? seriously, I'm really pissed with this.

I saw NewsBlur when it first popped up on HN but never gave it thought since I thought Reader served my needs well enough. Amazing how that inertia melts away when the floor vanishes.<p>Now I just have to wait for its servers to stop melting.

use it daily. Would be nice if Google released details on this "decline in usage"

Only word one suffices: Fuck!

Thankfully this will mean that the trend of news reader apps that consume Google feeds instead of the actual sources will end. Some of the current ones will die off, but maybe a few of the better will convert.

If anyone wants the direct export link instead of using takeout, this still works:<p><a href="https://www.google.com/reader/subscriptions/export?hl=en" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.com/reader/subscriptions/export?hl=en</a>

Here are some hand-picked, noteworthy alternatives: <a href="http://blog.feedity.com/2013/03/14/google-reader-alternatives/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.feedity.com/2013/03/14/google-reader-alternative...</a>

Can someone explain to me why no one is doing a direct, pixel for pixel clone of Google Reader? I mean, the thing is popular enough that any startup would die for its traffic. Not to mention its users absolutely love it. As Paul Bucheit said, it's better to have a small number of users who love your product than a large number that like it. And well, Greader has a large number of users who love it (bordering on fanatical about it). So why not do a blatant clone as a f* you to Google for nuking a product that its users are absolutely devoted to.

Just thought I would mention that you can use XPLR unsupervised machine learning API <a href="https://xplr.com/developers/" rel="nofollow">https://xplr.com/developers/</a> to build your own feed reader in the manner of <a href="https://xplr.com/products/illuminate/browser/" rel="nofollow">https://xplr.com/products/illuminate/browser/</a> Though this probably applies more to RSS reader developers than end users. In a way, you can build your own little Prismatic-like app, tailored to your needs, or just play with AI and news :)

Seemed like this would eventually happen since Google stopped updating Reader (and its APIs) a few years ago<p>I've also been working on a similar news reader app called BlogRoll: <a href="http://blogrollapp.com" rel="nofollow">http://blogrollapp.com</a><p>It can import your Google Reader feeds and has a tiled layout (which may not be everybody's cup of tea), but it works well for photo-focused sites like food and fashion blogs, and it handles other news sites and blogs quite well too.<p>Here's a screenshot of it: <a href="http://bit.ly/Yc1P9C" rel="nofollow">http://bit.ly/Yc1P9C</a>

+1 on first Google service shutdown that impacts me. I use Reader daily.

If you haven't already used it, check out <a href="http://getprismatic.com/" rel="nofollow">http://getprismatic.com/</a>. It replaced Google Reader for me. (It also replaced HN for the most part).

I'm building an alternative (<a href="https://feedreader.co" rel="nofollow">https://feedreader.co</a>) and would like volunteers to test it. The focus is on reading (<a href="https://feedreader.co/arpith/labels/read" rel="nofollow">https://feedreader.co/arpith/labels/read</a> should give you an idea) so it's much simpler than newsblur, etc, but the front end is built using a feed sync API (<a href="https://feedreader.co/api" rel="nofollow">https://feedreader.co/api</a>) which I think will be useful.

Instead of wasting your time creating petitions to keep Google Reader open, I suggest you make a petition to make Google Reader open source. Google is going to close Reader either way so at least we'd haven a self hosted good alternative.<p>Every alternative I've seen so far in this hole topic(yes, all of them, I've tested all of them) is either poorly designed, bad UX, weird browser problems or trying too hard to be more then a RSS reader. Guess I'll just have to spend 2 days and build my own. Oh, well :)

I wonder if Google has accounted for the effect of people who have been burned by coming to rely on a product that was yanked becoming reluctant to use Google products in the future?

Joining in on the disapproval of Google's move here, as I use it constantly all day everyday! Here's to hoping this public cry might change Google's decision to axe it...

I am using KrISS Feed, <a href="https://github.com/tontof/kriss_feed" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/tontof/kriss_feed</a> If you speak French, a little help here: <a href="http://tontof.net/?2013/03/14/18/12/56-presque-nouveau-lecteur-rss-kriss-feed-est-vraiment-tout-terrain" rel="nofollow">http://tontof.net/?2013/03/14/18/12/56-presque-nouveau-lecte...</a> and a demo there: <a href="http://tontof.net/feed" rel="nofollow">http://tontof.net/feed</a>

FEEDLY has done a great job: - with 4 clicks you find ALL feeds with - ALL feed groups / folders - ALL tags are imported - you even have the complete HISTORY of all feeds again - it is SYNCHED REALTIME with your Google Reader account: if you "like" a post in feedly, you instantly also have a "star" in Google Reader.<p>Any alternative discussed here should have this import and SYNC feature, otherwise it is useless.<p><a href="http://www.feedly.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.feedly.com/</a>

This is just a delayed press release, reader was killed 2 years ago with the release of google+ that removed the amazing social/sharing features that made it special.

I use Google Reader a lot so this is a shame|sad|annoying :(<p>Still this video "Hitler finds out Gooder Reader is shutting down" at least put a broad smile back on my face :)<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&#38;v=A25VgNZDQ08" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&#38;v=A25VgNZD...</a><p>(via Dave Winer tweet - <a href="https://twitter.com/davewiner/status/312049161677713408" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/davewiner/status/312049161677713408</a>)

I thought of this exact situation just last night when subscribing to a feed.<p>Firefox sent me to a google page which offered me an option to add it to either iGoogle or Reader. I recalled that iGoogle is being shut-down and thought it was strange that it was still offered as a prominent option. I guess now it makes sense.<p>I seems strange to me though that Reader will be shut down before iGoogle, which is slated for November 1, 2013.

Here's another good Google Reader alternative. <a href="https://feedbin.me" rel="nofollow">https://feedbin.me</a>.<p>It's a new reader with a similar experience to NetNewsWire. It costs $2/month but there is a free 3 day trial. I created Feedbin because I was looking for an alternative to Google Reader that's simpler than what's already out there. No social junk, no ads, no content discovery. Just an RSS reader.

A year ago near last Google Reader redesign I made my own online RSS-reader <a href="http://www.cliws.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.cliws.com/</a> and now don't care.<p>We should less depend on the large corporations. The idea about I think last time is that we need some kind of distributed Twitter (like we have perfectly worked distributed email now).<p>If you can't replace one tool with another you are in trouble definitely.

It’s sad to see google killing one of the most useful service. Though, there’s a petition going on to keep the Google Reader running <a href="https://www.change.org/petitions/google-keep-google-reader-running" rel="nofollow">https://www.change.org/petitions/google-keep-google-reader-r...</a> and more than 40k+ people have signed it.<p>If Google still decides to kill the service, I am going to use Feedly ;).

It looks like a bit of work to set up, but I might just adjust how I digest things and give this a shot: <a href="http://tabs.mediahackers.org" rel="nofollow">http://tabs.mediahackers.org</a>. "Rivers" probably aren't going to have the archiving and what not that Google Reader or others will have (maybe, haven't looked that deeply) but most stuff I just read, or not, and move on.

Thats funny... I found this post on google reader.

Crap, after years of avoiding RSS, yesterday I found a blog that I wanted to follow.<p>I signed up for Google Reader...<p>Sorry, folks - I may have caused the shut-down.

Though we focus more on industry/professional news, Delve (delvenews.com) just launched Google Reader integration. Now you can sync your data and we'll pull in sources, generate topics and turn your folders into 'channels' for fast news filtering. It's free to use Delve as an individual and we're launching our mobile apps soon!

They could have turned it into a payed service, with so many active users. What would be the arguments against such a move?

The really interesting product/service would be a datastore and RSS consumer like GR API is.<p>I think a lot of competitors spend time working on the UI and miss the power that is behind it.<p>(I would include Google in this list, even if they didn't have the front end UI the Atom API would still be a useful thing.)<p>I wonder if building something on elasticsearch would work.

This one works well on mobile devices and lets you add feeds from around the web and tag them for retrieval later. It also keeps you focused on one feed at a time instead of letting you put 100 feeds on one page which makes it hard to read any one.<p><a href="http://newsfeedreader.com" rel="nofollow">http://newsfeedreader.com</a>

For those looking for a desktop app, the Opera browser has a nice integrated RSS reader and is cross-platform.

Lots of people rushing to build RSS clients, but why not build something better?<p>If you can build something that will take any URL, figure out which bits are changing regularly (the news items, etc), and push the changes to a Reader style interface, you might be on to a winner.<p>It's 2013, a reader should be possible without RSS.

I've looking into building a Google Reader alternative for quite some time now. Because let's face it, Google Reader has been neglected since forever. This news prompts me to finally do it. Tell me what you think: <a href="http://getfishwrap.com/" rel="nofollow">http://getfishwrap.com/</a>

This definitely is the first time I've been disappointed by a web service shutting down.<p>I've been looking through alternatives. I'd like it to look like this, <a href="http://wp.me/aseR-cr" rel="nofollow">http://wp.me/aseR-cr</a> , be web-based, have keyboard navigation, and not much else.<p>Is there a web-based newsbeuter?

Could someone underline the advantages of Google Reader and the features that will be missed ? What had it that other free products don't ?<p>(I use a desktop reader for news (FeedDemon) and an Android app for podcasts, I don't really know what I'm missing by not using something like reader.)

I am calling for the biggest shitstorm in the existence of the Internet. Anonymous, where are you? :D

I've got to mention the FF add-on "InfoRSS" which I haven't used in a while, but I just exported my feeds to it rather painlessly and it offers some nice features if you're willing to put a bit of time into customizing what you want from it. Deals with podcasts as well.

At readrz.com, we will be releasing a related tool in a few weeks. It is not a pure RSS reader, but it's useful for aggregating information. See more details and subscribe for updates at <a href="http://eepurl.com/d48hj" rel="nofollow">http://eepurl.com/d48hj</a>

I was hoping for a different fate for Google Reader.<p>- The feed digesting functionality could have been merged into Google+<p>-Google Reader could have become a news reader skin on the of G+<p>As long as Google Reader remained a stand alone service and yet deeply tied into the search index, it has been doomed.

I was kind of always expecting this ... I'm always afraid the same thing will happen to Voice.

Author Warren Ellis on twitter: "Google shuts down Google Reader, probably the most effective tool I have."<p><a href="https://twitter.com/warrenellis/status/311992329181478912" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/warrenellis/status/311992329181478912</a>

I never used google reader, but I wrote my own tool to merge the feeds I care about into one megafeed: <a href="https://code.google.com/p/msrss/" rel="nofollow">https://code.google.com/p/msrss/</a><p>That way, I don't have to depend on any web services.

For OS X users that use Apple Mail it supports RSS Feeds.<p>Not sure about Outlook 2012 for Mac though...

Search, maps, reader what other Google services do geeks use daily? Strange decision!

When choosing your new reader, look for the one that's already monetized. Feedly has ads and plans for premium. NewsBlur has a paid option. Any hosted option without financial incentive lives at the whim of the developer.

Would you pay for Google Reader per month? <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1xr6ZINsFK69VCPW2ryuTfHGrt1RyE-1D51FEAdt0VJs/viewform" rel="nofollow">https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1xr6ZINsFK69VCPW2ryuTfHGrt1R...</a>

I have been working on one for the last couple of weeks, and will hopefully create it as a fully functional RSS reader:<p><a href="http://nuesbyte.com/" rel="nofollow">http://nuesbyte.com/</a><p>for more information, visit me on reddit username: 7hundredand77

One update for all RSS feed fans. If you are in India, US or Casnada, you could SMS enable your feeds by using the RSS feature of <a href="http://txtweb.com" rel="nofollow">http://txtweb.com</a>. check it out!

Between the massive interest in this topic and the fact that many google reader competitors were crushed by load last night, I'm having a hard time believing use has 'declined' as much as Google is implying.

At least now I'll have to search for another reader. I've always were worried that Google knows too much about me. They can access my email, see what I search and download, and every news/blog that I follow.

The writing was on the wall for reader once they stripped the commenting/sharing functionality. This was a great tool for the teams I managed to stay on top of things. The redesign destroyed the product.

Time to stick to Akregator.

Good motivation for cleaning out all those feeds I never read anymore...

I use it daily. A lot. Since they're shutting it down, couldn't they release the code as opensource so we can build our own greader servers? Or is that insane from the technical point of view?

I reacted in a same way when Google Notebook shutted down. WTF GOOGLE?!

We convert a few big-ish blogs to audio using a professional reader if you're into audiobooks or podcasts. Skip Google Reader listen instead.<p><a href="http://castify.co/" rel="nofollow">http://castify.co/</a>

what is concerning is that this decision could influence sites making their feeds available.<p>Twitter and G+ are not viable alternatives.<p>Google alerts to RSS were wonderful. I'm sure they will shutter alerts soon too.

They could offer paid version. I guess lots of people will want to throw a few bucks for that kind of product. For me Google Reader is one of the few software that I use every day.

I bought SimpleRSS.com a little while ago with the intention of building an alternative and open-source RSS reader. If anyone's interested in acquiring the domain, message me! ;)

Netvibes is another alternative (it has a widget and reader view).

For the people running their own OwnCloud setup: <a href="https://github.com/owncloud/apps/tree/master/news" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/owncloud/apps/tree/master/news</a>

See. The thing is. I haven't found ONE solution that imports starred items, unread items, and feeds properly besides Reeder. And it doesn't work on Android or on the web. :(.

I support this move.<p>For me, RSS is a necessary evil. I always opt for email subscription when I have the choice, because I find it infinitely more convenient to have my subscriptions and emails in the one place, rather than in two separate products.<p>However, for sites that do not offer email subscription but only offer RSS <i>cough</i>HN<i>cough</i> - I reluctantly use Google Reader to subscribe. Meaning an extra account to check each day.<p>Hopefully this won't merely result in everyone switching to just another RSS aggregator - instead, I hope it will prompt websites to start using more convenient subscription methods, whether that be email or something else.<p>RSS is dead. Long live... ???

Alternatives: <a href="http://www.nextbigwhat.com/alternatives-to-google-reader-297/" rel="nofollow">http://www.nextbigwhat.com/alternatives-to-google-reader-297...</a>

I used to have a news (rss feed) reader on my blackberry, which was great.<p>Now I switched to Android, I've been using Google Reader so I can sync it online too.<p>So now this sucks, what's the alternative?

- apt-get install rss2email - add some feeds - be done with it

Next will be Blogger...

I'm going to try <a href="https://ifttt.com" rel="nofollow">https://ifttt.com</a>. It has a few recipes for RSS: RSS -&#62; Instapaper, Readability, email and so on.

I just saw half my twitter timeline panicking about this. Is there so much people using it? What happened to desktop feed readers?<p>Newsbeuter is serving me well, as usual, for years.

A very nice thing about Google Reader is that is real time, because it receives pubsubhubbub pushes. Are any of the alternatives mentioned here capable of that?

I wonder what would happen if everybody who wants Google to continue Reader would start clicking on the Ads in Reader on a daily basis. Oh wait, which ads...

Are there any open source alternatives (I'm thinking Ruby/Rails/Sinatra) where I could throw up my own RSS read/sync server onto Heroku or something?

I have never gotten the appeal of Google Reader. I've been using Netvibes for several years and have yet to find anything better. You'll be glad you did.<p>netvibes.com

With the rise of things like Twitter and Facebook as primary news/link sources, I doubt that most people 18 and under <i>even know what RSS is</i>.

Correct me but the rest of the apps and website application who are RSS readers too use mostly, Google Reader. So this affects also them in a way.

This is a good opportunity for all you smart developers around here to come up with an open source self-hosted thing to replace gugl reader.

I'm assuming that this will also shut down the Google Reader API, but I haven't seen anything definite. Anyone have confirmation either way?

Hooray! <i>One time</i> I read the Fleshbot RSS feed, and I've never been able to un-read it -- it just stays in my "Read items" queue.

The loss of Reader doesn't matter much to me a most others. It's the fact that Reader synced all my RSS feeds to whichever application that was/is the flavour of the month. It's that ability to have a repository of your feeds available in an instance. That's the product people need. Google should try to build that functionality into Gmail or something.<p>Also, fuck any RSS feed reading service that charges monthly. I'll pay for an app, but I'm not paying a monthly subscription fee to read freely available content.

I'm going to move all my feeds over to FriendFeed.

Thank you, Google+

Liferea is a great RSS app. It's Free software too. <a href="http://lzone.de/liferea/" rel="nofollow">http://lzone.de/liferea/</a>

Although, it is sad for the current Reader users, good thing about Google is, it admits its failures quickly and get over it.

One of the first 2 sites I go to when I launch my browser in the morning everyday (gmail and reader). I will sorely miss it.

I believe the "loyal userbase" would be large enough to sustain a startup. But sadly that is not enough for google anymore.

Well that sucks. One of my most used/visited apps/sites. Maybe Yahoo should build a reader. Could be a good fit for them.

actually it is still available until June 1st. sad it will be gone. I think gmail will be next to go - I think the last gmail redesign made the product less usable on purpose; they must be paying a lot for storage cost on abandoned accounts, old emails etc; nowadays they get more transient user info from other sources ...

well, their "cleaning"s now deserve their own blog; just google this: site:"googleblog.blogspot.com" intitle:cleaning

I am afraid of what I am going to do with all this spare time I will regain once this is gone.<p>This was the home page of "My" internet.

I heartily recommend <a href="http://theoldreader.com/" rel="nofollow">http://theoldreader.com/</a> - lean and mean.

Wow. That's a lot of angst. I feel it too. Years of saving useful links on reader which was really easy to search.

They shut down the products API, in case anyone was using it. It was a quick way to get pricing info into apps..

Checkout <a href="http://multiplx.com" rel="nofollow">http://multiplx.com</a> as an alternate to Google Reader.

Screw you, Google. Now I need to spend my own time to write a replacement as there is no viable alternative.

<a href="http://ifgooglekillsreader.tumblr.com/" rel="nofollow">http://ifgooglekillsreader.tumblr.com/</a>

Google: Reader usage is going down, lets axe it.<p>Every alternative reader website / service: Fuck me thats a lot of traffic.

Do you this will have a big impact on sites like daring fireball that have a huge rss subscription base?

Save Google Reader : <a href="http://www.savereader.info" rel="nofollow">http://www.savereader.info</a>

Sad to see it go. At least I have 3 months to make my own, should make for a good weekend(s) project.

Anybody knows good alternatives?

Seeing the boom in alternatives, someone should start making a feedburner competitor.

Which reader can parse the xml file google reader generates without extra work?

<a href="http://lenta.yandex.com" rel="nofollow">http://lenta.yandex.com</a>

To me Reader is the 2nd most used google Service. A Great Lost to me.

sign the petition<p><a href="http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Ask_Google_to_keep_Google_Reader_online" rel="nofollow">http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Ask_Google_to_keep_Google_R...</a>

Sounds like an opportunity for Yahoo to raise its profile.

Dammit, I should be looking for an alternative rss reader

holy cow....can't believe this is going away. I love reader.<p>real reason they are shutting it down...they want all that sharing/interaction in Google+...which i hate.

Not cool, GOOG. Suppose I'll give NewsBlur a try then.

Guys, try this goo.gl/r861h Visually rich RSS reader

let me be the first to say <a href="http://nooooooooooooooo.com/" rel="nofollow">http://nooooooooooooooo.com/</a>

that is so sad.

its too bad. i can see why they cancelled it but it was an essential part of how i process information

I'll be honest, I never even tried Google Reader. An RSS reader is such a simple app, I didn't think that it would anything special.

Its very bad day for rss lover....

Will blogger stop supporting RSS?

RSS bypasses ads on websites. Google makes money on those ads. It was strange that they supported RSS for so long.

the world is near the end

As soon as RSS disappeared from Mountain Lion, Google copied the idea: time to sue again.

If they want to make money from it, charge for it.<p>I would gladly pay $40/month to access Google Reader.

Don't Be Evil... Heh.

WTF is this bullshit... I love Google Reader.

I'm a big dummy but almost every major decision Google has made since Larry Page became CEO has me baffled. The whole idea of squandering the nice vibes they had by forcing everybody into that stupid Facebook knockoff, killing off cool projects left and right, those dumb glasses that nobody is going to buy... I don't get it.<p>Is Reader costing them that much money? Put some ads on it then. Is this a Captain Ahab thing where Facebook is the whale? Then someone should let them know that no one really likes their Facebook ripoff because <i>no one likes the actual Facebook.</i> Facebook is a fucking car crash. I wish Google would just make cool stuff and continue not being evil and knock it off with the master plan bullshit.

Curse this decision - I use Google Reader every day.<p>What is the best alternative RSS reader ??

Why don't they just fucking ask me to pay for it? God damnit.

There were apps and services. They starting shutting down. Never actually mattered. Not to me at least. Until a few were killed, like Google Reader, and I started understanding the frustration and sometimes disappointment shown by some of the users and fans. I feel the same now. This is one of the few services other than Gmail that I use(used) from Google's shop. Will have to settle for a good alternative now.<p>I guess I would rather to go a paid solution. It's for the same reason that I am thinking of this move that I went to Pinboard from Delicious for - advertisements were not my worry, it was the chance being shut down.<p>Was Google Reader bringing any revenue to Google? I mean I never saw any ads in there, so I doubt it but some of you might be knowing better.<p>Not sure they have killed for just being out there not bringing any money home or <i>they will be focussing on Google Currents</i> now?<p>But stuff like this <a href="http://nick.typepad.com/blog/2013/03/the-end-of-feeddemon.html" rel="nofollow">http://nick.typepad.com/blog/2013/03/the-end-of-feeddemon.ht...</a> is more sad than the news itself :(

If one think devs must learn from this development, that would be - go for an open standard now. The way Rackspace is doing with OpenStack for cloud. Similarly sth for feed sync/tag etc - where a services changes with an URL and few more things like an UUID etc. Devs in this field might be having a better picture of this.<p>I just want sth like email. Like currently I host my mails with Google Apps with my domain but I can take it to my VPS any minute and my email will still be up and will keep syncing to my desktop/mobile clients without a problem. Or maybe I would shift to some free provider like ABC, XYZ etc.

What happened to you Google :(

I use reeder for Mac and ipad that is connected to my google reader account. Need to find an alternative now.

Google might drop anything now, groups , appengine, whatever , You just cant trust their Saas anymore.

Reader was the only thing that made me almost want a Google account. A real shame to see it shut down -- I don't think any competitors are as good.

Wait, Google is a business?