If you read many blogs, you probably use an RSS reader, and chances are that RSS reader is Google Reader—or was. Google Reader will be obsolete as of Monday, July 1, so you’ve got three more days to get your feeds transferred to a new reader before you lose all your data. Here are my favorite alternatives:
With 3 million new users since Google Reader announced its impending demise, Feedly is the most popular alternative to Google Reader. Like Reader, it’s free and, of the alternatives, it most closely mirrors the layout and functionality of Google Reader. You can view your feeds in four different formats (Titles, Magazine, Cards, Full Articles), organize them into categories, save them for later, and mark them as read. Some users lament the lack of search function and hotkey shortcuts, but those features are likely on their way. According to David Pogue of the New York Times, “Feedly is what you needly.”
Digg Reader is rolling out as I write this. To get on board, enter your email on their site and cross your fingers that you receive an invitation by Sunday. Still in the nascent stage, Digg Reader hopes to be everything that Feedly is plus trending notifications and Digg.com integration. I’m going to download my feeds to both Feedly and Digg Reader until I decide which I like better.
Feed Wrangler gets great reviews. The downside? It costs $19/year. Since I’m already forking out $9.99/month for DropBox storage and $60/year for SmugMug photo and video storage, I’m going to pass on this Mercedes of the RSS reader world. Some people worry that the free alternatives will follow Google Reader to its grave, but I’ll cross that bridge to Hades when I come to it.
FeedBin (not to be confused with Feed Bin) is another paid service. At $2/month, or $20/year, it’s even steeper than Feed Wrangler. For those mourning the lack of hotkey shortcuts in Feedly, Feedbin has those. And its best feature seems to be its Reeder for iPhone integration. For more info, check out this review.
Newsblur is web-based app, so if you’re a desktop reading enthusiast, this may be for you. You can subscribe to 64 feeds for free. After that, you have to upgrade to the premium service for $24/year. You can toggle between feed view or split view. For those of you who have tried out Newsblur in the past, take another look. The site was redesigned in May and, according to The Verge.com, “NewsBlur is the second-most popular option after Feedly on the site replacereader.com. Hardcore users (like Verge editors) like it for its speed, ability to organize feeds into folders, and keyboard shortcuts.”
Other popular Google Reader replacements include Fever (for tech geeks), The Old Reader (another web-based reader), FlipBoard (a free service with a magazine-style layout designed for iOS and Android users), and Pulse (also designed for the visual reader but with desktop capability). And if that's not enough options for you, here are 63 Google Reader alternatives.
If you're feeling overwhelmed, start by downloading your Google Reader feeds. You can always upload them later once you’ve decided which reader you like best. To do this, go to Google Takeout, select Choose Services, click on the Reader button, then Create Archive, then Download (once the archive has been created). Once the download is complete, go to your Downloads folder and open the downloaded ZIP file and look for a file called subscriptions.xml. Move that to your desktop and then save it somewhere secure (like DropBox or Google Drive) until you decide which reader you like best. Or you could just do what I did: Choose Feedly.
Thank you Meghan! Great info. Just transferred to Feedly - slick!
Linda - Add Bloglovin to your list of options! It seems to be popular among writers.
Lisa,
You're the second person who has mentioned Bloglovin to me today. I found the transfer to Feedly to be quick and easy, but I'm so glad Bloglovin is working well for people.
Thank you so much for this information! I'm going to explore the options.
I'm sure many folks will be thanking you for the reminder and resources. I tried two of these and was not enthralled. Someone told me about Bloglovin - transfer of blogs from Google Reader was seamless and fast, and it has such a clean layout, easy to navigate. I get a daily email w/snippets of any new posts on the blogs on my list (not mandatory, but handy). NO fee. (I have no affiliation w/them.)