
The sad state of RSS on the Mac - dewey
https://blog.notmyhostna.me/sad-state-of-rss-on-the-mac/
======
bad_user
I use [https://newsblur.com](https://newsblur.com) — it’s a web interface and
service with apps available for iOS and Android.

The code is open source and actively developed, which gives me peace of mind
when I pay my yearly subscription.

On my Mac I tried liking Reeder 3, but TBH NewsBlur’s web interface is better.
Reeder can use NewsBlur’s API and the syncing between mobile and desktop is
nice to have.

NewsBlur’s author has been very responsive to issues and has been actively
improving the service.

I also tried self-hosting various web solutions but it’s too much of a hassle,
a constant security risk and paying for a VPS ends up being more expensive.

~~~
ghaff
For me, it's that I use a variety of systems and operating systems depending
upon the circumstances. Unless it's relatively specialized tools (development
environment, heavy-duty photo editing), I'd _much_ rather have a web interface
I can get to from anywhere rather than having a native app I can only use on
one system. The native app has to be a _lot_ better at some task.

~~~
zsau
If you run a cron job that turns your feed items into emails[1], you can use
your regular IMAP client on any platform. I prefer it over both web clients
and native feed readers.

[1] There are a bunch of tools that can do this, but I'm going to give a
totally unbiased recommendation for
[https://github.com/zsau/feedmail/](https://github.com/zsau/feedmail/)

~~~
ghaff
I don't use a regular IMAP client :-) I read all my email through web
interfaces too.

------
sashk
Brent Simmons working on new open-source[1] rss reader for macOS —
Evergreen[2]. Brent is original author of NetNewsWire. He recently posted
screenshot[3] of current Evergreen state.

    
    
        [1]: https://github.com/brentsimmons/Evergreen
        [2]: https://ranchero.com/evergreen/
        [3]: https://twitter.com/brentsimmons/status/1020079742869884928

~~~
jasonmp85
I hate to say it because people seem to have some weird affinity for Pasco in
the Mac community, but Black Pixel is where good apps go to die. They bought
up Kaleidoscope and have effectively stopped all development on it (a paid
diff viewer that still has no syntax highlighting).

~~~
sbjs
Why does that app even exist? All its features are natively implemented in
git.

And an RSS reader? I'm starting to get the feeling that Mac apps are stuck in
2005.

Say all you want about Microsoft or Electron, but VS Code is the only
developer app on my computer that doesn't feel out of place or have a strange
and outdated UI. I don't care that it's consuming the resources of my cheap
desktop computer slightly faster than another app might, it gets the job done
and it's intuitive and works well.

~~~
dewey
Kaleidoscope has a bunch of great features, like diffing images and easily
resolving merge conflicts with a few clicks. It also integrates into other git
GUI tools like Tower for Mac. Of course if you live in the Terminal it's
probably not very tempting to use. It's a matter of personal preference.

I still use it from time to time even though I know that it's probably at the
end of it's life.

~~~
awinder
I use kaleidoscope with the git cli. I like using git from the command line,
except for dealing with merge conflicts, so I have kaleidoscope pick up merges
through its mergetool hook.

------
afloatboat
I use Reeder for Mac (and iOS) with Feedly and while I understand the author's
reluctance to buy, I haven't had any real problems with the apps in all my
years of usage. Although I must say I recently contacted the author with a
tiny feature request and didn't hear back from them either.

RSS is just a niche product, bring it up with your average user and they
probably won't know what you're talking about. I'm just glad these apps are
still around. Maybe we'll once get a resurgence like Podcasts.

~~~
abalone
I too am very happy with Reeder. It actually is kept up to date. Came out with
iPhone X support promptly, for example.

I think we’re just conditioned to expect super frequent updates for everything
every few weeks. Reeder is old school that way.

Having said that I only use it on iOS. On the Mac I use Feedly in a browser.

~~~
setpatchaddress
Reeder is excellent, and I've been happy with it, but the author is not
usually quick to update it. iPhone X support was a notable exception.

------
Aelius
> inbox got a bit out of hand by having too many unread items piled up. I
> slowly stopped looking at them before abandoning the idea completely

And this is precisely why it's insane and counterproductive to have unread
counts on an RSS feed.

Don't obsess over reading every last article. It's a feed. Read what looks
interesting. Let other things go. Don't track what you've read or what you've
missed. There's nothing down that path but frustration and stress.

And yet, almost no RSS developers see the wisdom in this, and they prefer to
embrace the dumb idea with open arms.

~~~
dewey
I think that also wouldn't solve the issue, what needs to be handled better is
the difference between high volume feeds and low volume feeds.

I absolutely want to see every post of my friend's blog that has a post every
few months. What I don't care about is to get every single MacRumors post with
the latest gossip because that would make up about 15 items / day. I've seen
some of the hosted solutions going into that direction but there doesn't seem
to be a self-hosted or app doing that yet.

~~~
Aelius
> I absolutely want to see every post of my friend's blog

I handle this by subdividing my feeds into useful categories- a feature which
every RSS client supports.

My friend's blogs are placed in a category alongside other low-volume feeds. I
never miss a post.

------
ymolodtsov
I’m using Reeder 3 and it’s actually quite good. The author updates it when
it’s necessary but yeah, no new features are in the pipeline apparently.

~~~
sashk
Reeder is the best right now, but author disappears for a long stretch of time
without updates, then large release, few bug-fix releases and then again quiet
time. Despite the fact he promised more frequent updates recently — he's been
silent for a long time to think Reeder is dead. It's been crashing a lot
lately, so not sure what to expect.

~~~
jwr
I think this is to be expected, since the app is not subscription-based.

We should all switch to subscriptions for apps that we use seriously, to avoid
this exact problem.

~~~
MBCook
It’s an RSS reader. I don’t expect anything but bug fixes, because I’m not
sure there are any new features I’d care about. Reeder does it’s job and does
it well.

My only complaint would be I’d prefer to use the native share sheet, not have
to go through the Reeder one to get to the native one. But that’s not a huge
problem. And I think Reeder may predate useful share sheets in iOS.

------
dombili
I use Reeder syncing with Feedbin. I couldn't be happier. Yes, Reeder rarely
gets an update but it works well and I believe it gets updated whenever is
necessary — which is enough for me.

Feedbin, however, is just fantastic. Easily the best service I've been using
for years, along with Pinboard.

~~~
thirdsun
I'm using the same combination. Daily and with zero issues.

Of course I'd wish Reeder was more actively developed, but thinking about it
there simply isn't anything missing. And if OP is dissatisfied with the
available RSS clients there's always Feedbin's web interface.

------
matt4077
I wonder what exactly the author misses in Reeder. I've been using it for
years, and did not even notice that it wasn't being updated.

I have feeds. They have posts. I read (some). The end.

There's nothing I'm missing, nothing that's broken. Complaining just about
missing updates probably explains why the author never got to read anything:
he was too busy fiddling with the reading experience.

~~~
dewey
I don't miss anything from Reeder, I use it on iOS already and it's all great.
I also don't really have a problem with spending the money for Reeder. I'm
just worried that in a few months when Mojave comes out all kinds of things
are going to break and I have to look for a new solution.

~~~
matt4077
I'm running Reeder on the Mojave beta and ... nothing changed.

~~~
dewey
That's great. Will it get updated to the new dark mode, will it get fixed if
the new beta version breaks it? I was just trying to get a sign of life from
the developer / developers. As someone else already said it has a history of
activity and being abandoned for long stretches of time.

~~~
whorleater
>I was just trying to get a sign of life from the developer / developers

This seems a little weird, no? Reeder's a one time purchase, not a
subscription service or anything, so it seems kinda strange to be so worried
about "a sign of life" for it. Lots of software used every day live in
"maintenance only" or even "not maintained mode".

~~~
dewey
I'm not demanding an SLA or monthly updates. It's the same as with pulling a
dependency into your projects, you are checking if the author is still around,
the issues are being worked on and if other people are using it too.

------
outworlder
I don't get this obsession with the "last update date". Are there major bugs
open? Did the underlying platform change and the app got left behind? Are
there any major features missing?

Software applications are never "complete", but at some point we can stop
fiddling all the time.

~~~
BuckRogers
If I had a popular piece of software out there, once I reached the point of
feature completeness (yes, I believe it is possible if you're a reasonable
person), and stability I would do meaningless updates once every 3 months just
to keep people that you're referring to happy and using my product. People
aren't smart enough to just "be happy" and content, so you have to trick them
into product satisfaction.

------
kitsunesoba
I’ve been using News Explorer for a while now and it’s been pretty good. Dev
is active, app is stable, syncing works, it’s not Electron.

~~~
bsagdiyev
Not commenting on the app itself, but isn't kind of a sad thing when
discussing an app and stating "not Electron" is probably a major selling
point?

------
tpush
I personally use News Explorer, both on macOS and iOS. It syncs via iCloud; I
don't need or want some third party subscription service.

I only use it for Youtube subscriptions though, so that I don't need a Google
account to follow channels I like.

~~~
dewey
This looks pretty great, thanks! I'll look into it even if it doesn't have
Fever integration. iCloud sync sounds neat.

------
ericsoderstrom
I use the inoreader web app, which works quite well. I don't think RSS is the
type of thing that really needs its own native app anyway.

------
Philipp__
Emacs and elfeed combined with swiper were the revelation for me personally. I
am finally satisfied with offline RSS Mac experience.

~~~
imglorp
Came here to plug this.

I'm working with the author to make a feed summary page like some other
readers have, if you prefer to see things collapsed that way.

------
bdz
It's web based not a desktop app but after Google Reader went down I somehow
ended up with Newsblur and it's actually pretty good. The iOS and Android app
is also nice.

------
meroje
I just recently started using Cappucino[1] from the makers of Airmail[2],
gotta say it feels like the spiritual successor to Reeder

    
    
      [1] https://rink.hockeyapp.net/apps/902c8f3a570242808ebb00495f5fa04d  
      [2] http://airmailapp.com

------
hs86
As someone who next to a Mac also uses Windows I just gave up on native RSS
apps. Somehow RSS (or Twitter) apps never got traction on Windows.

There are some nice self-hosted RSS aggregators but in the end I just 'solved'
this problem by subscribing to Inoreader. Its web app is convenient, resource-
friendly and has more features than I will ever need. Their Android app also
looks very polished. It is reliable to fetch article contents for header only
feeds and because most RSS feeds are just pointers to web content I am just
fine with not having a native app on my Mac/PC.

~~~
pjmlp
I use RSS in Outlook and Thunderbird.

------
newscracker
Tangentially, I'm looking for a good RSS reader for iOS (preferably free and
well designed, but paid ones are ok too).

I used to use Pulse, but it was bought by LinkedIn and completely messed up
after that. Then I switched to using Apple News to follow some sites. But News
is not a proper RSS reader as such, and Apple has done little to improve it
since it was released with iOS 9 — still supported and available only in a few
countries, cannot add RSS feeds, cannot find certain sites through a search,
and very weird bugs if one switches the region setting. It's basically
abandonware, as far as feature richness and expansion are concerned. Three
years on, I still don't understand why the app cannot be available worldwide
and work as a feed reader too.

I've tried Flipboard, but I don't like the fancy magazine-like layout and
navigation (which I find unintuitive).

~~~
mercutio2
I like Newsify. iCloud sync, no nonsense, free with minor paid upgrade I
didn’t need but paid to support the developer.

------
fernly
Just a vote for the oft-ignored RSS Owl. Don't know about the maintenance
status, I see the web page is only copyright to 2015. But it works well.

[http://www.rssowl.org/](http://www.rssowl.org/)

~~~
superkuh
Yeah, it's getting pretty old and there are a lot of unfixed exploitable
vulnerabilities. Plus I was starting to have trouble using it with sites that
had bleeding edge https/ssl configs.

I ended up switching to the slightly more modern Liferea a couple months ago.
[https://lzone.de/liferea/](https://lzone.de/liferea/) I don't like the
interface quite as much but it's workable.

------
zeitg3ist
For me it’s the Newsblur web interface on desktop, and the wonderful Unread on
iOS. I paid for it years ago and it’s still getting updated monthly with new
features and bug fixes, even though it has changed hands twice in the
meantime.

------
tarentel
I've been using ReadKit with very few issues for 4-5 years now. Maybe it's
just that specific integration but it works fine with Feedly.

------
NickBusey
This is a bit off topic, but with so many people recommending what they use in
this thread I thought it would be a good place to ask.

Can anyone recommend a good online newsreader that has a solid docker
deployment? NewsBlur looked promising, but their app requires four setup steps
to be executed in the terminal. I'd like something that gets pretty close to
Twelve-Factor deployment.

~~~
dewey
Yes, I’d also recommend Miniflux. It’s great!

------
perardi
I've started using NetNewsWire on the Mac in...2005? Earlier? They can pry RSS
from my dead cold hands.

I wish ReadKit didn't seem abandoned. Great keyboard shortcuts, Pocket
integration, and no attempts to algorithmically sort items. I wonder if this
is another app that got hurt by the lack of upgrade pricing in the Mac App
Store. I'd pay again if I could.

~~~
shakna
NetNewsWire is getting a successor, Evergreen [0].

[0]
[https://twitter.com/brentsimmons/status/1020079742869884928](https://twitter.com/brentsimmons/status/1020079742869884928)

------
guybedo
Never really liked RSS on the mac, used Google Reader, then switched to Feedly
but wanted a little bit more, so i built [https://aktu.io](https://aktu.io), a
RSS reader + news aggregator, kind of a mix between Google Reader and Google
News.

Would love some feedback!

------
stunt
I'm RSS reader for more than 8 years. I just moved to online services long
time a go. Despite the sad fact that they disappeared after a while(Google
Reader, Digg Reader) they are great and hassle free. Currently I'm using
Feedly and that is how I'm here now.

------
tehabe
I'm looking for a new RSS service, the problem is, that the one I liked best
raised its price over the limit I'm comfortable with at this moment. So I'm
out of luck. I have given up search for a good RSS application.

~~~
tschellenbach
Try Winds, it's free

~~~
tehabe
Winds is one of those Electron-based applications, and the idea of having for
each application an entire web browser installed and running sounds more then
weird to me. I'd prefer a progressive web application or native local
application or a simple web site.

------
billbrown
I think this might be a moot problem once Mojave allows you to use iOS apps on
the Mac. The RSS reader situation on iOS is much more dynamic and would
probably translate fairly well to the keyboard and mouse.

------
Volt
I still use NetNewsWire 3.1.7. It's still the best RSS reader I've ever used.
It has become more crashy as the OS updates come though, presumably as Apple
keeps breaking its APIs.

~~~
i4i
I'm very happy with NetNewsWire 3.3.2 on Mac OS El Capitan 10.11.6.

------
dieg0
I emailed the developer of Reeder about exporting my Readability's bookmarks,
but never got a reply. I feel better now that I'm not the only one not getting
a reply. Thanks!

------
dottrap
I use Shrook. It is native, lightweight, fast, and free.

------
tschellenbach
Check out Winds: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/winds-podcasts-
rss/id1381446...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/winds-podcasts-
rss/id1381446741?mt=12)

And [https://getstream.io/winds/](https://getstream.io/winds/)

It's open source and looks awesome:
[https://github.com/getstream/winds](https://github.com/getstream/winds)

~~~
CharlesW
> _It 's open source and looks awesome_

"Looks awesome"? As the CEO/Founder of the company that makes it, have you not
tried it?

~~~
setpatchaddress
I think they're complimenting the appearance of the app.

------
clircle
I have used Thunderbird on Elfeed on Mac, both are quite good. Just not
standalone applications.

------
mariuolo
I also add rssguard and quiterss to the list, but I don't know about Fever.

~~~
dewey
I didn't know about them but they'd probably both not qualify as a nice to
look at native Mac app personally.

~~~
mariuolo
I see.

What about running TT-RSS locally and fetching from it with FeedTheMonkey?
Probably the same limitations, but I put it out there.

------
wickedOne
been using newsfire rss
([http://www.newsfirerss.com/](http://www.newsfirerss.com/)) for a long long
time.

still works perfectly for me...

------
torstenvl
I use Reeder, syncing with Inoreader. Works great for me.

------
sidneys
Reeder in combination with Inoreader is my choice.

~~~
BuckRogers
Why both?

------
se7entime
Thunderbird to the rescue...

------
galonk
Reeder is awesome.

------
mkempe
Have you tried Vienna? I've happily used it for the last several years now.
It's open-source.

[https://github.com/ViennaRSS/vienna-rss](https://github.com/ViennaRSS/vienna-
rss)

~~~
cprecioso
Is it just me, or they just don't have any screenshots anywhere? I'd like to
see the interface before downloading and running it.

~~~
dewey
Yea, this also baffles my mind. It's probably the first thing I look for
before even thinking of downloading something. Google images only has
screenshots of very old versions it seems.

Lack of screenshots usually indicates to me that the interface is probably not
worth showing.

~~~
chadcmulligan
There you go [https://imgur.com/a/5OYIDBM](https://imgur.com/a/5OYIDBM)

~~~
dewey
Thank you, that actually looks better than expected.

~~~
chadcmulligan
I've only had it a week or so and it seems pretty good, you can arrange things
in folders and it has smart folders to, which create dynamic lists using
criteria - haven't looked at them yet - they're not something I need. It
hasn't crashed yet and seems to just work.

