These nine RSS feed readers all offer something different, whether it’s speed, simplicity, social interaction, or DIY-level customization. Which one is right for you?
You want content from your favorite blogs, news sources, and sites of curiosities delivered to an inbox-like environment. You want to be able to scan those items, and perhaps read them, or maybe save them to read later. I do, too, and for a long time, I used Google Reader for my RSS feed-reading needs. But as of July 1, Google no longer provides that service.
Many of us who rely on RSS for news updates, streamlined leisure reading, and other direct delivery of information from the worldwide Web have been busy looking for the best service ever since Google announced it was taking Reader to the graveyard.
But not all RSS feed readers have the same features. Do you need a your RSS content to include Google Alerts? Is access to a native mobile app at the top of your list? Do you like your RSS reader service to suggest new content that you may not have otherwise found?
My personal quest for a new RSS feed reader led me to reevaluate what was important. Simplicity and a clean design came out on top. I also spent a long time looking at which readers included tools to help me organize my feeds. I don’t use RSS for breaking news, so speed was a little lower on my list.
Support for OPML file uploads, on the other hand, seemed just as important as anything else, as that function is necessary for former Google Reader users to migrate at their own pace. Any reader that does not support OPML files requires connection to Google on or before July 1, and I feel like those services should do better by their potential users and give them more time to migrate. On the other hand, services that support OPML allow former Reader users to join any time, provided they’ve snagged their Google Takeout data and have their subscriptions.xml file ready to upload.
My colleagues and I at PCMag rigorously tested many alternatives to Google Reader. Two favorites came out on top, which became our Editors’ Choices. But depending on what’s important to you, a different service could fit your needs better. Take a look at these top services and our notes about their pros and cons to see which one will work best for you. And if nothing in this list tickles your fancy, see, “Top Free Picks: RSS Readers.”
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