If you are one of the many users that were upset by hearing that Google Reader was being retired, then take a look at Ino Reader. It’s a free, browser-based RSS reader that has a simple and easy to use interface. You can sign in with Google, Facebook, or create a new login with email. You can add subscriptions manually, import subscriptions via OPML, or import your Google Takeout data. It has social media sharing options, as well as Pocket and Instapaper integration. There’s a Google Chrome extension and a mobile viewing site if you want to read on a tablet or smartphone. I’m hoping they create an iOS and Android app soon.
This is my RSS reader of choice at the moment, so check it out and let us know what you think in the comments!
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Bookmarked. Thanks. I’m still holding out hope that Google reconsiders the retirement of Google Reader.
Thank you for the heads up on this. First impressions have been very good. I have tried The Old Reader (http://theoldreader.com) but it seems to me a bit buggy.
I’ve been searching for a replacement for Google Reader. When you look at the alternatives, you realize just how much better Google Reader is. Speed is one of the biggest advantages.
I’ve tried Feedly (got extension to make it look like Reader) and Old Reader. Feedly doesn’t have the arrow navigation buttons, you have to use the keyboard to move quickly to the next article. Old Reader seems to be a lot slower than GReader.
I liked how InoReader imported my Google Reader subscriptions. It touts itself as fast and light. So far, so good. One annoying thing, I can’t seem to reorder my folders. Want to make it look like Google Reader. If it doesn’t support such a basic feature, that would be annoying.
The other thing is what’s it feed source? Feedly is dependent on GReader so its speed could be affected by the shutdown.
@Lap It’s feed source can be an OPML file, your xml Google Takeout file, or manual addition of feed URLs. As July gets closer, I’d recommend grabbing those files so you can import them later. Let’s hope Feedly and Ino will be able to hold onto your subscriptions once Google Reader shuts down. 🙂
@Elizabeth thanks for the tip. I’ve been happily using Feedly since I heard about Google Reader going away. At first I didn’t like it much, but now I really like it and I think I can read/catch up faster than with Google Reader. I’ll give Ino Reader a try too 🙂
Thanks Elizabeth. I posted something on InoReader forum concerning the folder reordering. Hopefully it’s something easy to do.
In the about page, the author specifically mentioned the shutting down of Google Reader as his impetus to start InoReader. Good to see someone take action. Hope the software continues to improve but stay fast and lean. Right now, its initial impression is stronger than either Old Reader or Feedly. A good sign!
It doesn’t mark items as read when they are opened in a new tab, which makes it useless for me.
Given how many people have lamented Google Reader’s passing why is it so difficult to look up “copy” in the dictionary and just copy GR in terms of layout and operation. There are people out here who would pay for that.
Wow!! I put a feature request on the Ino forum and they’ve fixed it! Articles opened in new tabs now show as read. Just for this fast service they’ll be my default reader (I’ve been using the Brief add-on for Firefox which is pretty good).
@izzy that is awesome 🙂
You should definitely try http://eldonreader.com. I’ve been using it for a couple of weeks and its totally amazing.
Button – I must be thick but eldonreader doesn’t do anything. It has a bunch of feeds it recommends – none of which are interesting to me. There’s no way to import feeds, not way to add feeds and it seems pretty useless. What am I missing?
@izzy I had the same thoughts…
Julie, the eldonreader might be designed iPad as its primary interface. All the setup is done via the iPad and the web version is just a way of looking at it. No good to me, I’m afraid.
This one works for me http://www.g2reader.com
since some weeks i´m using feedly and it´s ok. but now they are talking about that you have to pay for it, so i´ll also have a look to ino reader. bloglovin is also not bad, but simple 🙂
@ Michal. Thanks for the suggestion! I’m really liking g2reader…it’s like feedly but it’s a website version that I’ve been waiting for.
Does anyone know if inoreader will be releasing an iphone app anytime soon?
Jacob – I don’t know – but my search is back on for a decent Google Reader replacement. Inoreader is suffering from popularity I assume. In the past few days it’s been unuseable due to slow refresh times and the server being down many times a day. Also the great mod that they did for me (see above) has been reversed which makes it a pain to use. There have been a number of tweaks in the past week or so that have just manifested themselves as bugs and all-in-all I’ve just about given up on it.
I’ve gone back to the Firefox Brief add-on, but I’m on the lookout for a decent Google replacement. If I could code it myself I’d just copy Google Reader and have a very popular RSS aggregator. I wonder why noone has – am I missing something?
Just to piggy back onto this, AOL came out with a reader beta, and it’s actually not too bad! You can sign up and most likely will get access in a day or two: http://reader.aol.com
@Izzy In terms of how long it takes to develop quality software, we didn’t really have very much notice of this at all… I’m amazed the replacements are as good as they are this quickly. And replacing Google Reader isn’t just a matter of creating a web app that mimics its user interface (which is hard all by itself, once you get to a certain level of subtle detail) — you also need a back end where you have to potentially scale to handle every RSS feed in existence, if your app gets popular enough. That’s the hard part, and it’s why most of the feed reader ecosystem came to rely on Google for the heavy lifting.
(I have to admit, while I will miss Google Reader, I do think having it go away is healthy in the long run… the feed reader ecosystem was really *too* dependent on Google, and perhaps it will be good for the future of RSS to be in the hands of developers who are invested in it and willing to try new things. It will just very bumpy for a while…)
Thanks Rob. I don’t really understand the tecchie stuff, but if InoReader didn’t show me multiple copies of the same article and then keep on showing me them for days on end even though I’ve marked them as read and/or deleted them then perhaps the lifting wouldn’t be so heavy. I estimate that about 30% of the items that InoReader presents to me are either duplicates of items lower down the list or articles which I’ve read or deleted in the past few days – in spite of my having ticked the ignore duplicates option.
When I use almost any browser (even Netscape Navigator used to do it) it highlights links that I’ve visited before, so I don’t understand why InoReader can’t simply match article URL’s with my history and not display them if I’ve already visited them. You could nick the code from Firefox which colours visited links and change the “if URL is in history then set font colour to purple ” sub to “if URL is in history then set article read status true”.
However, the main issue which drives me away is the fact that when I open an article it doesn’t open in a background tab. I like to go through a feed list, open a bunch of articles in the background which I want to read then mark the list as read before getting on with reading the tabs I’ve opened. If I right click to open in a new tab it’s no use because it doesn’t mark articles as read. I have to cmd-click – and to be honest it’s too much of a pain because my other hand is usually occupied with a bacon sarnie or a cup of tea.
Thanks for getting back – it’s appreciated and InoReader is still bookmarked mainly on the basis of this level of support but I think I’ll be using Brief for a few months until you’ve had chance to stabilize it.
Elizabeth – AOL reader is not a Google replacement. No way to simply open articles in new tabs makes it unuseable for me. A nightmare of pop-ups and navigation. It’s been said before, but merits repeating: Google reader was very popular because of its very simplicity – no pop-ups, no pictures, no animation, just a list of articles and a simple way to open them. They never asked me to pay for it, but given how much I’m going to miss it and the fact that there are no real substitutes out there I wish they’d asked for money because I’d pay for something as good as Google (by which I mean identical in every way except the Google logo in the TLH corner). Oh well…. the search goes on.
I use FlowReader from http://www.flowreader.com to read my web news feed and my social accounts feeds. Since Facebook closed its API to outsiders, it is only Twitter and G+ accounts only for me, but still better that other rss readers.