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Newshutch Loses Steam

Well, my beloved RSS reader, Newshutch, has taken a turn for the worse. I hung in as long as I possibly could, but the service lately has been downright terrible. While Newshutch still manages my feeds excellently, the site has been plagued with very slow response times causing the interface to feel far too sluggish to be usable.

Over the past few months it seems that Newshutch was gripped by overload after a switch to hosting company Joyent. I had fond hopes that the developers would come through on their assurance that service would be restored, but there has been no real resolution. After many weeks of frustration, I’ve decided to look for another RSS reader.

For me, there are a few must-haves:

  • Web-based application
  • Browser integration
  • Simple, usable interface
  • Feed Organization (Categories)
  • Support for alternative content types (video, audio embeds)

I would also prefer something ad-free, even if there is a small monthly cost on my part to ensure this. I really enjoyed Newshutch’s “flag” as favorite feature. A similar feature would be another bonus.

I’m thinking about evaluating Google Reader again, even though their early iterations were pretty rough. They have brought marked improvements to that product in the last few months. However, I am wide open for suggestions. Anyone found an exceptional web-based feed reader?

[tags]feeds, rss, reader, web, application, newshutch[/tags]

9 Comments

  1. Aaron Asay

    2007-10-29 1846hrs

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    Bloglines is totally the way to go… nice to use online and on a mobile phone!
    ——-

  2. Justin Thorp

    2007-10-29 2335hrs

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    Google Reader rocks my world.

  3. Zack Rippy

    2007-10-30 1023hrs

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    I use Google Reader. I’m not the most demanding person of my feed reader, but it does the job for me just fine.

  4. David Song

    2007-10-30 1920hrs

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    Have you looked at Netvibes? Meets all of the requirements on your list. :-)

  5. Ayush Saran

    2007-10-31 1259hrs

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    I know lots of people who switched from Bloglines to Google Reader

    Google Reader works great and has an offline feature.

    i used that before i got on a plane this weekend to read thru some long posts while in flight

  6. Zack Rippy

    2007-10-31 1354hrs

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    The offline feature is very convenient. It also works great when your ISP is lame and you have frequent internet outages (like me)!

  7. Jim Walton

    2007-11-01 1015hrs

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    Google Reader is the answer, much improved over early iterations, give it a look again.

  8. Jason Powell

    2007-11-01 2247hrs

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    I was a firm bloglines hold out until early this spring.  I agree that the first release of Google Reader was rough ... but they really made some huge improvements and now it’s what I recommend.

  9. Tim McGhee

    2008-01-15 2028hrs

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    Have you thought of developing your own hosted reader?

    Is there any code out there for private use that would still be server-based, not client-based, and would include a “Mark as read” kind of feature?

    I mostly use Google Reader.  I use Outlook 2007 for all my church blogger feeds.

    Tim
    11,181 days

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2010-07-29 1117

Very nice. Less tab clutter. RT @nathansmith: RT @faaborg: App Tabs in Firefox 4 Beta 2: http://bit.ly/bkWIHp

2010-07-29 0000

ffmpeg and exiftool are my pals.

2010-07-28 1524

@dave_clark Working in our production suite today because we are getting set up with new live streaming from @kulabyte. (Not with the FS1.)