# Replacement for Google Reader (will be shut down) **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 13, 2013, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/replacement-for-google-reader-will-be-shut-down/652872 "2013-03-13T23:49:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/replacement-for-google-reader-will-be-shut-down/652872/21 "2013-03-14T15:48:40Z")
For a long time now, I’ve just used Internet Explorer as my RSS feed reader. Simple and clutter-free. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/replacement-for-google-reader-will-be-shut-down/652872/22 "2013-03-14T15:57:17Z")
Now that the online experience has been so thoroughly monetized and marketed, a merely useful tool is not enough. Users may love it, but development teams and advertisers get bored. You will be pushed on to the next big thing, and eventually, you’ll learn not to need the functions of the useful tool. That’s what a lot of us don’t understand about the information age. In the absence of physical product, planned obsolescence is the only thing keeping it going. Unless you and I and 1,000,000 others hop on the next big thing, people don’t eat. ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/replacement-for-google-reader-will-be-shut-down/652872/23 "2013-03-14T16:14:22Z")
I have to say, Google is losing a bit of goodwill with this move. (Is that a fair response to the discontinuation of a totally free program from a company that’s been extremely useful in my life? I’ll sidestep that question for the moment…) Why couldn’t they just leave Reader up and let its users know that it will no longer be updated or revamped? How hard would that be? ---
**Author:** ![LaurenIpsum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@LaurenIpsum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LaurenIpsum)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/replacement-for-google-reader-will-be-shut-down/652872/24 "2013-03-14T16:20:46Z")
I still don’t get why RSS isn’t used more. There have got to be millions of blogs out there. Do the people who read blogs simply visit the website for all their blogs every day on the off chance there may have been an update? Surely there are more than a handful of people out there who follow a lot of blogs but don’t want to constantly check all the individual sites. ---
**Author:** ![Krouget](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b38774/32.png) [@Krouget](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Krouget)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/replacement-for-google-reader-will-be-shut-down/652872/25 "2013-03-14T16:42:58Z")
> [@Rodgers01](#): > > I have to say, Google is losing a bit of goodwill with this move. (Is that a fair response to the discontinuation of a totally free program from a company that’s been extremely useful in my life? I’ll sidestep that question for the moment…) Why couldn’t they just leave Reader up and let its users know that it will no longer be updated or revamped? How hard would that be? Though you’ve sidestepped it, I’ve had that debate with a friend of mine, already, and it was my line of logic. This move is both good and bad, but ultimately, it leaves a wide gap to be filled by the next taker, for all the right reasons. His counter-argument was that the shutdown is happening too soon, though he also understood the potential positives. As to not updating it, I’d say that’s been a core issue for Reader, as it is. I have/use the service, but I mostly rely on it as a backend for other services I prefer, such as Feedly-- the alternatives, in mobile and web, tend to beat the pants off reader, in both the UI department and with features…so yeah, the writing was sort of on the wall, as it was with Google Listen, before. > [@LaurenIpsum](#): > > I still don’t get why RSS isn’t used more. There have got to be millions of blogs out there. Do the people who read blogs simply visit the website for all their blogs every day on the off chance there may have been an update? Surely there are more than a handful of people out there who follow a lot of blogs but don’t want to constantly check all the individual sites. I don’t get that, either. I guess some people really do browse the web, constantly, for their feed information, or they’re just oblivious to the idea of consolidating it into one source, such as this. I was in the latter camp at one time, until someone made the suggestion, so part of it is really a matter of ignorance. This is partially why this move is interesting. People are realizing just how much Reader had bearing on their other services, or now that it’s stirring news headlines, what they’ve been missing. Go figure. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/replacement-for-google-reader-will-be-shut-down/652872/26 "2013-03-14T16:53:57Z")
> [@Krouget](#): > > I don’t get that, either. I guess some people really do browse the web, constantly, for their feed information, or they’re just oblivious to the idea of consolidating it into one source, such as this. I was in the latter camp at one time, until someone made the suggestion, so part of it is really a matter of ignorance. Meh. I used an RSS reader for a while around 2008. For many things, they already maintain constant update schedules so I already know when there will be new content and the stuff that updates irregularly, I don’t need to know every day. Once a week or a month is good enough. ---
**Author:** ![AngelSoft](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/angelsoft/32/440_2.png) [@AngelSoft](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AngelSoft)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/replacement-for-google-reader-will-be-shut-down/652872/27 "2013-03-14T17:00:40Z")
I’m pretty upset about this. I’m an avid reader of webcomics and this is the easiest way to keep track of which ones have updated. It lets me see and access all the newest comics and I don’t know how I could handle the amount I do otherwise. Does anyone have any recommendations of something to replace Google Reader? I don’t use twitter really or Facebook, and I just really like the RSS setup. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/replacement-for-google-reader-will-be-shut-down/652872/28 "2013-03-14T17:02:44Z")
One possibility is that Google may integrate RSS feeds into Google+ > **[Google Reader may very well rise again... as part of Google+](https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/03/google-reader-will-rise-again-as-part-of-google/)** > > RSS won't be killed by social media. It will become social media. ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/replacement-for-google-reader-will-be-shut-down/652872/29 "2013-03-14T17:20:12Z")
> [@Rodgers01](#): > > I have to say, Google is losing a bit of goodwill with this move. (Is that a fair response to the discontinuation of a totally free program from a company that’s been extremely useful in my life? I’ll sidestep that question for the moment…) Why couldn’t they just leave Reader up and let its users know that it will no longer be updated or revamped? How hard would that be? Your criticism is pretty misguided, IMO. They introduced a cool new product for free, making the underlying foundation open-source, which allowed many independent developers to take up the idea and refine it in many cool different ways. Now that there are a multitude of developers riffing off their original idea, they see no need to continue that project themselves, and instead leave it up to the robust community that they allowed the freedom and enough time to form around their original idea. Now, they can free up those redundant resources to work on other cool, new projects that may never take shape without someone like Google to provide the original impetus. You don’t see companies like Microsoft and Apple doing stuff like this very often. Google deserves a great deal of credit for this and many other largely selfless things they’ve done to make the internet into what it is today. ---
**Author:** ![standingwave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/replacement-for-google-reader-will-be-shut-down/652872/30 "2013-03-14T18:16:39Z")
> [@Rodgers01](#): > > I have to say, Google is losing a bit of goodwill with this move. It might be a minority but it’s a pretty vocal and tech-savy minority: Wired, Mashable, Forbes, TechCrunch, BuzzFeed, Computerworld, Engadget, TechCrunch, PCWorld, CNET, Gizmodo, Lifehacker, ZDNet, PC Magazine, [bit-tech.net](http://bit-tech.net), Silicon Valley Business Journal, Slate Magazine, Gizmodo, etc. I will miss Reader but I will simply switch to another feed reader. I was using RSS before Reader and I expect that I will continue to use it after it’s gone. It’s just too much of a time saver. I’m subscribed to over a hundred feeds and RSS lets me scan the new content in about twenty minutes. Visiting a hundred different sites every day is not a viable option. Nor is social media any kind of useful replacement for RSS. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/replacement-for-google-reader-will-be-shut-down/652872/31 "2013-03-14T18:28:37Z")
[Feedly](http://www.feedly.com/) seems to be a popular suggestion for a replacement. It’s an iOS/Android app and works in Firefox. This site looks interesting too: [http://1kpl.us](http://1kpl.us) RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It’s a way to basically see the headlines of a bunch of different articles/blog posts/other posts, and clicking on those headlines takes you to that article/post on the site. Also works with Twitter feeds for now (Twitter is cutting that off.) For example, I could subscribe to CNN, Wired, and MSNBC RSS feeds, and see their stories interspersed with each other chronologically, newest first. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/replacement-for-google-reader-will-be-shut-down/652872/32 "2013-03-14T18:54:02Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > Yeah, this is why I’ve avoided Google Calendar, actually. I rely heavily on my shared calendar with my husband and if Google decided to axe the service it would be extremely inconvenient for me. > > Twitter is absolutely not a replacement for RSS and IMO people who are making that suggestion don’t really understand what RSS is or how people use it. I would _hope_ though that since Google Calendar synchronization is built into Android, they won’t get rid of it. But the way Google is axing stuff, you never know. ---
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/replacement-for-google-reader-will-be-shut-down/652872/33 "2013-03-14T18:54:13Z")
I downloaded NetNewsWire (for Mac) as soon as the little box showed up in Reader. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/replacement-for-google-reader-will-be-shut-down/652872/34 "2013-03-14T18:55:43Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > People who say that assume that all the blogs in the world also have Twitter feeds and Facebook pages. It’s not true, of course, and RSS still has its uses - but without Google’s Reader and its crossplatform abilities it might be facing hard times. > > I guess I might use Netvibes as a replacement. I’m not sure. > > Between this and the caldav changes, I’m starting to rethink my usage of the Google Family of Products, though. I used Google Calendar because it’s easy to get to and it works with everything. If that stops being true then there’s no point to sticking with them. They’re willingness (or their mad compulsion, whatever,) for axing their products after a couple years is a real pain in the ass. I’m glad now that I never bothered committing to the Android ecosystem (well, I have a Kindle Fire but it’s just for dinking around). I know what you mean, but Google isn’t the only company that axes things by far. It’s just that we aren’t used to it with Google. In fact Google has been more likely to preserve things, like Picasa and Google Groups (USENET.) ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/replacement-for-google-reader-will-be-shut-down/652872/35 "2013-03-14T18:56:19Z")
> [@LaurenIpsum](#): > > I still don’t get why RSS isn’t used more. There have got to be millions of blogs out there. Do the people who read blogs simply visit the website for all their blogs every day on the off chance there may have been an update? Surely there are more than a handful of people out there who follow a lot of blogs but don’t want to constantly check all the individual sites. More people are “liking” things on Facebook, so they get automatically updated when there’s an update. A lot of old fogeys I know still have E-mail subscriptions to blogs so they get an E-mail update when there’s something new to see. And even more people I know don’t read any particular blog regularly. They just read stuff that someone else has linked on Twitter or Facebook. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/replacement-for-google-reader-will-be-shut-down/652872/36 "2013-03-14T20:21:34Z")
I never saw the point in consolidating information, really. Sure, I use RSS, but only so I have quick access to a particular feed. I don’t see the point in putting all my feeds together, since they are all different types of information, and I’m not going to want to know about them at the same time. It’s the same reason I don’t get Twitter. Why would I want my friends, celebrity news, coupons, site updates, and real news all in the same place, especially when I’m going to have to click on every single last one of them to actually read the content? I also don’t see the point in having multiple sources for the same information, really. Accuracy of information is usually not that important, so I can delegate that to others rather than compare information. And, anyways, if it’s important information, I’ll learn about it in other venues. In other words, I don’t think the average web user would ever have that many RSS feeds that they’d need to put together, and, for those who do, there’s Twitter, which is pretty much the same thing only proprietary. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/replacement-for-google-reader-will-be-shut-down/652872/37 "2013-03-14T20:48:12Z")
Looks like Digg is building a Reader: [http://blog.digg.com/post/45355701332/were-building-a-reader](http://blog.digg.com/post/45355701332/were-building-a-reader) They were originally planning one to be released in late 2013, but the recent news has accelerated their plans a bit. ---
**Author:** ![tellyworth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@tellyworth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tellyworth)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/replacement-for-google-reader-will-be-shut-down/652872/38 "2013-03-14T20:53:04Z")
[WordPress.com](http://WordPress.com) [has one too](http://blogs.denverpost.com/techknowbytes/2013/03/14/wordpress-coms-reader-ready-to-take-google-readers-top-spot/9136/) (disclosure: I work for the same company) ---
**Author:** ![Wolverine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba9def/32.png) [@Wolverine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolverine)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/replacement-for-google-reader-will-be-shut-down/652872/39 "2013-03-15T07:49:47Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I never saw the point in consolidating information, really. Sure, I use RSS, but only so I have quick access to a particular feed. I don’t see the point in putting all my feeds together, since they are all different types of information, and I’m not going to want to know about them at the same time. That’s why I have my feeds sorted by category. For example, all my webcomics go in one category, video game news in another, and politics in a third. Sometimes there is an overlap in content in a category (such as similar articles on Kotaku and The Escapist) but generally each feed is unique enough to aggregate without too much overlap of stories. If I’m not in the mood for world news, I can ignore ithe category for a couple of days while still reading the other feeds. It’s like a news website specifically tailored to me. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/replacement-for-google-reader-will-be-shut-down/652872/40 "2013-03-15T08:12:24Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I’ve never even know what an RSS feed is, and I’m… more advanced than the average web user, if not an expert. It’s a way for a site to tell you when they update, without you having to visit them and constantly refresh. I’ve only ever used a third party reader called [Feedreader](http://www.feedreader.com/). It’s not been updated in about five years, but that’s okay because neither has RSS. If there was a popular RSS app that heavily promoted itself as “a way for you to receive updates from all your favourite sites without having to visit them!!! (feature list, fancy GUI, buzzword etc),” as though it was new and modern and hip instead of ten year old technology, then RSS would not die out. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/replacement-for-google-reader-will-be-shut-down/652872.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/replacement-for-google-reader-will-be-shut-down/652872.md?page=3)