

Ask HN: Which free RSS reader to recommend to our inexperienced users... on IE? - tempestn

I run www.searchtempest.com, a niche search engine for classifieds sites like craigslist (no affiliation).  One of our features is to provide an OPML file of the craigslist RSS results feeds for the user's search from all cities within a specified range.<p>This can be extremely convenient for people looking for a rare item and willing to travel to get it when it comes up.  You can stick it into a folder in your RSS reader, and have your own personalized feed of new results matching your search.  However, our user base is representative of the general population.  In other words, many of them do not yet use RSS.  Some are quite technically savvy, but many are not, and many use IE.<p>Thus far, we have been recommending Google Reader to those unfamiliar with RSS, for obvious reasons.  We've written detailed step-by-step instructions[1] for importing and organizing the feeds in GR.<p>As you <i>may</i> have heard, Google Reader will be discontinued soon.  So we need an alternative.  I would love to recommend Newsblur, but the fact is that most of our users won't be willing to explore a paid service, and in almost all cases, the free limit of 10 sites will be exceeded.  (Personally I think Newsblur is worth its price many times over, but that's irrelevant.)  I would also recommend Feedly in an instant, except... IE.  Tried TheOldReader, but found filtering and sorting large numbers of feeds into folders to be quite a pain.  Also slow, although that may well be temporary.<p>So... what do we recommend?  Above all, it needs to be simple.  If it's a great reader in general, all the better, but the main criterion is that we can get someone from zero to viewing their craigslist results in as few simple steps as possible.  And it needs to be free, and needs to work in IE.<p>[1] http://tinyurl.com/atrdqyt
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tempestn
Ah, just realized since craigslist sites are all subdomains on the same
domain, they might well fit within the free limit for newsblur. Went to
confirm that and found this:

"Due to overwhelming demand, free accounts are temporarily suspended. By going
premium you get full access to NewsBlur."

Certainly understandable, but disappointing.

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rssident
Try <http://rssident.com>

The search features were built specifically for searching Craigslist.

Example:
[http://rssident.com/mash/?t=job&e=telecommute](http://rssident.com/mash/?t=job&e=telecommute)

The UI is not the most intuitive or user friendly yet but we are working on
it.

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tempestn
As far as I can tell there's no way to import an OPML file, which is my entire
use case. Am I missing it?

Also just FYI, after signing up, I'm booted back to the sign-in form with no
indication of whether the signup was successful or what; I actually assumed it
had failed.

~~~
rssident
I am working on the OPML import. That's the highest priority currently. Might
take me a week or so to add it though because I am busy for the next few days.

The feedback to the user during signup and login is totally lacking. I know it
needs work.

There are a lot of improvements I am going to add to the UI to make it more
user friendly.

Thanks for the feedback. I am open to all suggestions and will add features as
I have time.

