Poll: Do you use Google Reader on a daily basis?

309 points by tnorthcutt ↗ HN

253 comments

[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 254 ms ] thread
I use Reader on a nearly hourly basis. I suppose I should stop that...
It's been basically my primary portal to the internet since it came out. Other than HN and reddit, which don't really produce super useful feeds, I don't really browse any sites directly anymore. I have always been looking for the next big thing to replace it, since there hasn't been a tremendous amount of effort put into it lately, but nothing has compared.

The feature that I have been sort of daydreaming about is the ability to use your subscriptions to weight your search results so that sites you've subscribed to are ranked higher.

You may prefer a modified reddit feed [1] where the article URL is the main RSS item URL, which makes the RSS feed much more useful.

[1] http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?_id=bnYqwjiA3RGJxTckBR...

Thanks, that does look useful. It might be a good way to follow some low traffic subreddits without subscribing to them.

My main beef, however, is less with the content of the feed per se and more with the fact that they are in a fixed order, so you lose the curation aspect of voting.

That would be a very interesting feature. My Reader search results are by far more useful than google.com results.

I'm also waiting for post to G+ from reader.

Read Later would also be very useful.

Yeah, I'd settle for a high quality search within reader itself, realizing that integration into the main search might be impossible.

I find it really confusing that the "Share" link in Reader still goes to Buzz, which is sort of associated with my G+ profile but not quite, in that it doesn't seem that people who are in my circles are necessarily able to see them.

The Instapaper bookmarklet works great in Google Reader :)
Shameless plug for more useful HN feeds: http://hnapp.com - filter posts by points, keywords, etc. and subscribe to the results by RSS.
Hey, then I can also put a link for http://jetsli.de here ;)

The next version will contain the possibility to include any rss feed and rank them to your personal needs. At the moment the first ten of your searches are used to boost articles if your are logged in.

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Why? Is this market research for a new reader, or is this tool next on the Google chopping block and your looking for demographics.
I was just curious. I'm addicted, and I wanted to see if other people felt the same way.

When they dropped Reader from the global nav. I was very upset, but was glad to see there was enough of a ruckus to get it put back.

I don't know that I would pay to keep Google from axing it, but I would consider it, and thats saying something.

i would definitely pay to manage my rss feeds via its UI or at least through an API
Yes, one of the main advantages is having all the historical posts there, since RSS is used only for latest posts.

Another feature is automatic translation, I follow a blog from Ukraine there.

In my experience Reader doesn't store all historic posts. Posts older then a month or two start disappearing.
What is an example you have? It seems that it has historic posts as long as anyone else every has followed the feed via Reader previously. Likewise, it won't display old posts in the list, but will dynamically load them as you "try" to scroll down. Perhaps one of these is what would happen for you?
There isn't a specific example feed. It used to happen for all unread posts. I don't know if it still happens or not as I don't leave enough posts unread anymore.

The exact behavior was with several hundred unread posts in Reader with the oldest unread being 2-3 months old the oldest posts would slowly disappear. I know it was happening because they would be posts I wanted to read but didn't have time to so I would notice when they disappeared. It is possible they were still in Reader in a read state but I never bothered to check.

this is actually (apparently) a intentional behavior, old posts that you never personally marked unread will after a month or several be marked read. I only recently discovered this myself, and yes it is an intentional behavior. (how else would you be able to handle reading all the newer articles? :p)
Interesting. I always assumed it was just Google trying to keep the resources used by Reader to a more manageable level.
I think you catched a glitch for some specific blog, I just subscribed to an interesting blog and can go back many years ago.
No. It was not a specific blog. I explained the issue in more detail in child comment of your comments sibling. It has been months if not years since I last noticed it so Google may have fixed it.
I pretty much leave reader open my whole work day and jump over to it whenever I get some down time.
I generally use Feedly (http://www.feedly.com/home#my) now, mostly because their Android client is much faster, at least for the way I read. They sync subs, and status with Reader so you can bounce back and forth. Their web client really isn't any better than Google Reader's but it's somewhat habitual now to go there instead of Google Reader.
I really don't like their android client too much and prefer the native google reader client on android. Btw. here is a small tips with Feedly that I enjoy (for Firefox):

You can also install this plugin: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/new-tab-homep...

Then you set feedly as your default tab open page. I see it everythere I do a Ctrl-T and because I quick-peek it many times a day, I can keep up with a large number of feeds.

I've abandoned the native app and just use the web version of reader bookmarked onto my home screen. Its works great and saves precious space on my Nexus One.
Missing option: Yes, but would use something better.
Given the subjectivity of "better", who wouldn't?
Exactly. But I mean, some folks might be 99% happy with it, I'm 60%.
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I ssh into my server and run Newsbeuter (http://newsbeuter.org/). I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a console based RSS reader.
I've been using Fever for (what I think is) a few years now and haven't looked back: http://feedafever.com/
Do you use the Hot / Sparks feature at all?

I also use fever, but that particular aspect of it doesn't seem to work for me -- so I just use it as a regular rss reader.

I am also a big fan of Fever. I actually use the Sparks feature a lot. It has completely changed how I use RSS, from attempting to read all my feeds to just reading what is "hot." The key is finding RSS feeds of sites that are link aggregators on topics of interest to you. The Hacker News RSS feed is actually a classic example of a great site to add as a spark in Fever.
Yes, although I rarely ever use their web interface to view the feeds. (I use reeder, if your curious)
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Do you mean Reader as a service or Reader as a web app? I use Reader clients across all my devices daily, I wouldn’t be caught dead using the Reader web app daily. It’s horrific. (I will use it if I happen to be in front of a device where I cannot install anything and only have access to a web browser.)

The service is great, the web app is not.

> I will use it if I happen to be in front of a device where I cannot install anything and only have access to a web browser.

Really? Usually in situations like that I either pull out my phone and use Reeder for iOS or visit the websites directly. Google Reeder's web client might as well not exist, it's just so bad. I'm actually kind of surprised there isn't a Google Reader web app replacement that is popular or well known. I would be interested in a "Reeder in the browser" solution like that occasionally.

Yes, but I find it very frustrating in some respects. It essentially performs a similar function to Gmail, but using an interface that feels 5 years out of date. I really hope that G+ is the beginning of a more integrated approach to input stream classification and management. It drives me nuts that Reader doesn't provide any method for construction of tagging rules, trackback analysis, or filtering.
As far as I'm concerned, Google Reader is the internet. I rarely interact with websites directly.
I use Tiny Tiny RSS (http://tt-rss.org/). Open source, with a correct mobile web version and an Android application.
Ah! I have to try that! I a heavy Google Reader user but I would prefer something installed on my server that I can completely control. I tried a few ones but none were even close to Google Reader in term of usability, but I never tried Tiny Tiny RSS. Thanks for the link :-).
Yes, but basically only on my phone.
You are missing the option "Yes, but via a third party client"

As I normally use net newswire and reeder, both tying into google reader, but I hate the web site interface.

I tried Reader but it's not in my face enough to remember it, instead I use Opera's built-in RSS reader which has notifications (I imagine Chrome + Reader could have notifications like Gmail Chat).
No, but I use Reeder.
Ditto. I used Google Reader until I found Reeder for Mac and iOS. Reeder syncs with Google Reader so technically I do still use it, just not the web interface.
Ditto. I used Google Reader until I found Reeder for Mac and iOS. Reeder syncs with Google Reader so technically I do still use it, just not the web interface.
I use NetNewsWire (http://netnewswireapp.com/). I usually open up a lot of tabs in my browser, so I try and move things away from it as much as I can. Plus, native apps look better than web apps, at least for now (and at least on Macs).