Hacker News Reader

Comment by cstejerean | Hacker News Reader

I would definitely pay for GMail and Google Reader, unless someone can find me a similar service (web based and with awesome support for keyboard shortcuts). AFAIK the competition doesn't even come close.

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A good alternative to Google Reader is simply visiting the sites you want to :-) I'm being sarcastic, but I honestly don't get the point of using a web-based RSS reader, I've always just bookmarked and visited the sites I desire to check.

Have you tried using Google Reader or other? I used to bookmark and revisit, but there were two problems - too much time visiting sites when there were no updates and it was too much hassle to visit sites with rare updates (like pg essays or Yegge novels). Now I follow ~150 feeds and it takes less time than I spent following 10-15 with bookmarks.

I've solved that problem for me by configuring rawdog RSS reader. Now, it checks for update and generates a static HTML page. (if you are interested, here is the link: http://anton.kovalyov.net/tools/feeds/)

So I don't have to visit a website just to make sure that there are no updates and I also don't have to use some big RSS reader with a lot of unnecessary things (ajax, tags, stars, share with friend, etc.)

That's really nice! I like the fact that you control the output and that it's web accessible. Does it include a way to mark items as read or do they just drop off the bottom?

Just drop off.

There is also Bloglines. I recently switched from Google Reader to Bloglines' beta version, since I felt the latter was slightly faster, and it is supported in my blackberry browser.

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