Jeremy Molina

November 10, 2023

RSS: Concisely read your favorite websites in 2022

Reading websites can be done in a better and simpler way. Let me narrow down the reasons you should choose one or the other.

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Before we start, let's define what RSS stands for:

RSS: Really Simple Syndication is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Wikipedia

Google Reader used to be a very common way to centralize blogs and website publications into one endpoint, but Google killed it. As part of this, many services were born, some free and others with freemium and paid-only offerings. Remember, nothing is free, “The Price of Free Online Services”.

There are many options and choosing one is hard, especially for the paid versions; is a tough cookie to sell. Before I wrote this article I did my own research and end up disappointed with the lame articles that exist; either they are, notably, sponsored articles, or ancient.

Anyway, here are my findings:
Pros
  • Beautiful User Interface (UI).
  • Good pricing.
  • Get any newsletter into Feeder instead of your main mail inbox.
  • Responsive Support Team.

Cons
  • The trial is too limited, with only 10 feeds.
  • No text extraction.
  • No Safari extension.
  • Third-party apps can’t connect through an Application Programming Interface (API).
  • No free version.
  • Requires to install a special browser extension that is not available in Safari to see the extract of some websites.


Pros
  • Cheap service ($30 per year).
  • The text extraction is perfect!

Can’t decide
  • The UI is lame. It works, but there are some User Experience (UX) choices that, I think, are too confusing. For example, within an article, you have the option of “Ignore” and “Skip”, which does the same as scrolling to the next article.

Cons
  • Current developer and development status Footnote #1.
  • No free version.

Pros
  • The price is good ($36 per year).
  • The training feature is fantastic if you want to train the service to serve you better articles, at least the ones that fit your taste.

Can’t decide
  • UI seems outdated, but I can live with it.

Cons
  • There is no archive for old articles and based on the developer, this may cost $19.99 per month in the future Footnote #2.
  • Background refresh doesn't seem to work, so you won't get notifications on your phone when new articles are posted by the sources you follow.

Pros
  • Web UI is simple and beautiful.
  • The price is good ($5 per month or $50 per year).

Cons
  • The mobile app is trash, --sorry--, but this is a web view, not an app.
  • No way to manually force a sync.
  • No unread icon.
  • Limited post storage (400 per feed).
  • To get notifications, you need to pay for Feedbin Notifier which is another $3, moreover, the application is independent; this just doesn’t seem right.


Pros
  • The new UI is beautiful.
  • "Magic" sorting is great.
  • Deduplication is a must.
  • Free plan.
  • Cheap supporter plan, $20 per year; no magic or deduplication, though.

Can’t Decide
  • AI is good but besides the "magic" sorting and the deduplication, it is not worth it at $9.99.

Cons
  • Expensive ($9.99 per month if paid monthly / 7.50 when paid yearly, $90).


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Pros
  • Competitive pricing ($3 per month or $25 per year for the cheapest plan).

Cons
  • Outdated UI.
  • No text extraction.
  • The service is too basic.

What did I pick?

Surprisingly, none. I went for an iCloud-dependent app; I'm currently testing (1) News Explorer which is a one-time purchase of $9.99 for Mac and $4.99 for iPhone/iPad and (2) NetNewsWire is completely open-source and free.

I went with an iCloud-dependent app because I bought the new MacBook Pro M1 Pro 16".
I will be sharing my thought about the new MacBook Pro in a future post.

If you own several Apple products, and you are also paying for iCloud, the app route is way better and cheaper; two-month subscriptions will pay for the entire app, even better, if you go with NetNewsWire which is 100% free you will have everything you need without paying anything extra.

Footnotes

  1. BazQux The developer is in Russia, and I’m worried that the current situation escalated and that someone ceased the service. Furthermore, the developer admitted that all development has been stopped; for this reason, I can’t strongly recommend the service not because of the service but because of the current situation between the West and Russia sanctions. Reference: https://discourse.bazqux.com/t/how-is-development-going/220/3 ↩
  2. NewsBlur Archival tier to be released later in the future. Reference: https://forum.newsblur.com/t/only-3-weeks-of-history/9146/6 ↩

About Jeremy Molina

Visit my blog at www.jeremymolina.com | Technology geek, Blogger and Critical Account Manager at Cloudera. Find me at X (Twitter), Threads and LinkedIn.