What is RSS, where to download icons and which reader is the best. Review of RSS readers - self-hosted alternatives to Google Reader

Hello, friends! In one of the previous blog articles I already managed to briefly talk about RSS feeds e news. A review awaits you today best RSS readers. Thanks to this article, everyone will be able to choose a reader to their liking!

is this a program or online service required for RSS readers feeds of sites and blogs that you have subscribed to. In other words, it is a program that collects updates from sites that interest you. Why is this necessary? It's convenient, simple and saves a lot of time.

Just imagine, you don’t have to go to dozens of your favorite sites to see whether new articles have appeared on them or not - new articles will come to you themselves! Beauty!

I would highlight the following types of RSS readers:

built into browsers;
online versions located on some website on the Internet;
individual programs that require installation;

RSS reader built into browsers

Today, readers are built into almost all popular browsers:

FireFox;
Opera;

Their main advantage is simplicity. Subscribing to news is similar to adding a site to your favorites. The disadvantages are the limited functionality and the fact that you will have to configure everything again on another computer.

Firefox

Adding an RSS feed to Firefox is incredibly simple, just go to the site whose updates you want to receive, and in the panel FireFox menu Click “Bookmarks” - “Subscribe to news feed”.

You will be redirected to the page with announcements of this site, click on “Subscribe”, choose where to place your subscription bookmark and click “Subscribe” again.

Now you can follow updates to this site from the firefox bookmarks bar.

RSS reader in Opera

Click on the “Opera” icon on the left top corner- select “Feeds” - if we want to add a new feed, then select “Manage news feeds...”, if you are reading what you have already subscribed to, then “Read news feeds”.

By selecting “Manage news feeds...”, the News Feed Subscriptions window will open, where you should click “Add” and specify the properties.

There are only three properties:

Name - you can set it yourself or simply check the box “Get name from feed”, then it will be set automatically;
Address — RSS feed address. How to recognize him? Each blog has an orange icon like the one I have in the right column. It may look different and is often disguised as something, but you won't have any trouble finding it. By clicking on it, you will be taken to a page - its URL is what we need.
Refresh - sets the intervals at which the RSS reader will request updates from the sites you have subscribed to.

Having specified all the parameters, all that remains is to click on “Ok”. Read news in the “Opera” section - “Feeds” - “Read news feeds”. We've sorted out Opera, now IE is next.

Things are a little more confusing with Internet Explorer, but nothing, they didn’t cope with that. Let's look at Internet example Explorer 9 version.

On the page of the site that we want to see in our news feed, go to “Service” in the menu bar - select “Web feed detection” - select RSS 2.0 subscription; it may be called differently on different sites.

Note: If you do not have the menu bar enabled, press Alt.

You will be redirected to the subscription page, where you click on “Subscribe to this web channel.” In the window that appears, specify the name of the new RSS feed and in which folder it will be saved.

To view updates from added sites, click on the star in the upper right corner and select the Feeds tab.

Online RSS readers

Advantages of such readers:

mail, reader, maps, search engine, calendar and a bunch of other useful widgets are in one place;
no need to configure for each computer;
RSS reader exists regardless of your operating system and the computer in general. If your OS crashed, your computer burned out, or you just formatted HDD, no data will be lost.
You can access your reader from your phone, your friends’ computer, or from an Internet cafe; all you need is a browser and the Internet, and you don’t need to configure anything additional.

What could be the disadvantages? The desire to have something with greater functionality.

The most popular are Google Reader and Yandex Tape. They have a very simple and intuitive interface. I have already written about where to find them and how to add new announcements to them, so I will not repeat myself.

I would like to highlight one more service - Netvibes. I dedicated an entire article to him - . In addition to the RSS reader, it has a lot of interesting things.

RSS reader programs

The main advantage of such readers is big set functionality. The disadvantage is that they are located on the computer, that is, if you have several computers (at work/at home), then you will have to install it on each of them. Fortunately, you won’t have to set everything up again, because... It is possible to export/import news feeds. It is not possible to view your news feed from someone else's computer.

OS: Windows.
Interface language: Russian.

Free, multifunctional RSS reader with Russian interface. It is possible to export/import customized news feeds; file formats are supported: OPML, OCS or XML. In order to view the pages of the site, it is not necessary to open an additional browser; they can be opened in the program itself, which is very convenient.

You can add subscriptions in the following ways:

Adding an RSS feed for a specific site - just specify the address of this site, and RSS Bandit itself will detect the news feeds available on it.
Subscribe to the news group. To do this, you need to specify an NNTP news server.
Search news feeds for a given word. Available by default search engines: Syndic8 service and Yahoo! News.

For convenience, added feeds can be grouped into folders.

To add a feed, select “New...” - “News subscription” from the menu and follow the assistant’s instructions for adding a new signature.

OS: Windows.
Interface language: Russian.

Simple, free and with a Russian interface. Provides the following functionality:

customizing the interface type - there are three templates to choose from;
grouping news by date, tag or source;
distribution of RSS feeds into folders;
flexible sorting of news feeds;
detailed information on each individual news: status, date, tag, source and author;
built-in browser allows you to open website pages in the FeedReader3 program itself;
export/import of news feeds to an OPML file;
fine-tuning program behavior;
and much more.

To add new announcements, go to “File” - “Add” - “News Feed”, specify the address of the new RSS feed and click “apply”.

That's it for me RSS review reader has come to an end! Thank you for your attention. See you again!

It requires muscle to operate, and overall installation takes about five to ten minutes. The OPML file was imported without problems, and the subsequent loading of feeds also went well.

Appearance:

There is also an "image only" view available, which displays all posts in tiles.
The functionality is generally excellent. There is a calendar in which you can select a date (or range of dates), it is possible to assign priorities to feeds and filter them accordingly. You can configure authorized access and enable public read-only. There's even a bookmarklet. Entries can be added to favorites, and then they will not be deleted after a certain period (the period can be specified in the settings). You can easily add devianart, twitter and tumblr user feeds. There are definitely one or two clients for Android, but this, of course, is not always enough.

The fly in the ointment was the strange work with the Cyrillic alphabet. At initial download everything is ok, but turning on any feed leads to a failure - that’s all Cyrillic characters are displayed question marks. When viewing entries, they are not automatically marked as read, and there is no way to change this behavior in the settings. Well, the most main drawback: the project is no longer supported by the author - all his efforts are now focused on Selfoss, which will be discussed below.

Summary: convenient, easy to install, fast RSS reader with several unexpected features, and not having several expected.

Selfoss

Selfoss won me over with its design from the very beginning. Of the online beauty aggregators (this is my IMHO, of course), only Feedly can compare with it. The installation took three minutes including downloading the distribution kit. The program is ready for use immediately after downloading and installing the necessary rights to the folders - that’s all possible settings optional. You can use Sqlite (default) or MySQL as a database. Google's OPML works, but with problems - more on them below. Hotkeys are almost similar to those in Google Reader.

Standard view (and there are no others, actually):

As I said above, Selfoss is the brainchild of the same developer as rssLounge, and it inherits some of the features of its predecessor. For example, the ability to link Twitter and Tumblr user feeds, the possibility of public access and adding entries to favorites with deleting outdated entries. Hotkeys are the same. Some disadvantages have also migrated: for example, entries are also not marked as read when viewed.

Flaws:

I have a little over a hundred subscriptions in Google Reader. Selfoss crashed at 504 every time when loading tapes - and even raising the limits to some sky-high values did not help. It is quite possible that these are temporary problems (or even local problems on my server; in addition, I did not try to connect Selfoss to MySQL), but the aftertaste remains.
The most important disadvantage, in my opinion, is the impossibility of viewing a separate feed; you can only watch either everything or by tags. It is also somewhat unclear the meaning of dividing the contents of a post into three columns, regardless of its size:

Overall, Selfoss leaves a very pleasant feeling, and there is hope that it will very quickly get rid of childhood illnesses and learn the skills of its predecessor. I’m very pleased that it was done according to all the canons adaptive design- the service is quite convenient for use on both tablets and smartphones.

Feed on feed

It's quite an old reader - the last time it was updated was in 2007, and it was stuck at version 0.5. And yet.

Appearance:

OPML loaded quickly, but this is perhaps the only good thing that can be said about this reader. Web 1.0, minimum JS. The search for some advantages ended in nothing, since all subsequent launches home page tightly hung the chrome tab - everything is loaded at once, naturally. But there seems to be a plugin for Wordpress.

Lilina

Appearance:

Minimum functions: feed management (including feed auto-detection), OPML import, viewing... and... that's it. Two bundled plugins add the ability to save a post to instapaper and send a link to the post to your Wordpress blog. By the way, about Wordpress. It is clear that the author was inspired by this particular engine, this is clearly hinted at by the built-in system of plugins and themes, template tags the_content(), the_title(), etc., and even the address of the knowledge base - codex.getlilina.org

Disadvantages: there is no way to mark posts as read, there is no search, there is practically nothing at all. It hasn't been updated for over a year.

ZebraFeeds

An absolute minimum of functions - the project was initially intended for further addition, customization and integration and, as you can see, is completely unsuitable for use out of the box.

Official website, github

Rnews

Quite an advanced reader, but the project, unfortunately, died out back in 2009 (however, there is still some activity). For some reason I didn’t want to join my server, so here’s a screenshot from the official website:

Features: multi-user mode, public access, several types of viewing, categories, OPML import and so on - everything that you usually expect from an RSS reader.

In general, if the project had not died, it would have been a very good competitor to Tiny Tiny RSS.

NewsBlur

To test NewsBlur, it is completely optional to install it; a fully functional demo is available on the project website. The functionality is top notch: in addition to the standard features for this kind of software, NewsBlur allows you to view entries in the form of naked text, in the feed and in original design. Great emphasis is placed on socialization.

In general, the functionality is almost similar to the capabilities of GReader, however, the interface, in my opinion, is very overloaded with unnecessary elements.

Results

I decided to bring into the final table only those readers that are actively supported (+rssLounge - the functions that it contains will most likely migrate to Selfoss)

	rssLounge	Selfoss	Tiny Tiny RSS	NewsBlur
Last update	2011-02	2013-03-16	2013-03-15	2013-03-17
Requirements	PHP, MySQL, Apache	PHP, MySQL/PostgreSQL/Sqlite, Apache/Ngnix/lighttpd	PHP ≥ 5.3, PostgreSQL/MySQL (InnoDB, ≥ 5.0)	Python, Fabric, MySQL/PostgreSQL, MongoDB
Import OPML	Eat	Eat	Eat	Eat
Import starred.json and shared.json	No	No	Not yet)	No
Public mode (read-only)	Eat	Eat	No	Judging by the official website, there is
Multiple user support	No	No	Yes	Yes
Community activity		I couldn't find the settings
Adding notes	No	No	Eat	Eat
Add to favorites	Eat	Eat	Eat	Eat
Sharing	No	No	There is public RSS, sharing in G+. Twitter, saving to Pocket, etc.	Eat:
Other Features	You can set priorities and filter accordingly, bookmarklet	Heir rsLounge	Open API (json), tags, automatic filters, multilingual, there is an extension for chrome, individual settings for folders and feeds	Available as a service, browser extensions, individual settings for feeds, one of the main features is an intelligent filter

Of all the readers I've found, only Tiny Tiny RSS and NewsBlur can match the functionality of Google Reader. Selfoss seems quite promising - considering good functionality its predecessor, there are hopes that Selfoss will by the time Google closing Reader will become a sort of glamorous Tiny Tiny RSS. All other participants in the review are either completely non-functional or no longer supported. I don’t pretend to fully cover the entire range of self-hosted solutions, so if someone offers a couple more alternatives, I’ll be happy.

For me, the undisputed winner is Tiny Tiny RSS - although it lacks the looks of Selfoss (or Feedly), it is the most advanced and convenient RSS reader I have tested, and, in all likelihood, it is the one I will use.

Hello internet! Today I would like to talk about RSS news feeds and RSS readers (RSS reader, RSS readers) for these tapes. I'll tell you why RSS feeds are needed and what they are. I will also do short review RSS readers. In this review I will only include those RSS readers that are really easy to use. I won't clutter up the post. different services, programs that I found on the Internet... No, only those programs and online services that deserve my close attention. At the end of the post, I will mention some sites and programs that were not included in the review. Also at the end there will be a link to download the programs.

In order to understand what RSS readers are, you need to know about the essence of RSS. A RSS- This news feed anything, in particular, any website. When they see the word “RSS”, many associate it with news from a website or blog. In particular, this is true, but you can create your own RSS feed and publish what you want there.

RSS reader(s) are programs or online services that read the RSS news feeds you specify and produce a list. It is them that I will consider in this post, and you, without closing this page, choose the most suitable RSS reader for yourself. Well, or you’ll find something else on the Internet or from the list at the end of this post. But I warn you – you won’t find anything better.

In general, RSS is a useful thing. Some people simply underestimate her, but in vain, guys, in vain. A very useful thing. You can collect all the news in one pile and be aware of everything that is happening. There is no need to open websites in hopes of new articles. By the way, I know a couple interesting tricks on this topic, so I will gradually reveal them in subsequent posts. But on one condition, that RSS will be at least in some place related to the topic of the post.

RSS readers can be divided into 3 types:

Online services.
RSS readers built into the browser.
Individual programs that require installation on your computer.

I find the most convenient are the latest RSS readers that are installed on a computer. They have one wonderful feature, which I will talk about in due time. In the meantime, I’ll say that each type of RSS reader is good in its own way.

How to subscribe to RSS feed

Although more specific will not be “How to subscribe”, but “How to find a link to subscribe.” This section is for those who are hearing about RSS for the first time. And those who are not the first day on the Internet came here rather for a review, which will be discussed a little later.

I will be brief, since there is nothing complicated here. The screenshot below shows the RSS links that you have probably come across.

If the site you are interested in does not have such links, then enter the word “RSS” into the search form and search, perhaps you will find information on this matter.

RSS readers/readers built into the browser

The advantage of such readers is ease of use. In a couple of clicks you can subscribe to updates on the open site. In addition, browsers have synchronization with the creators’ server. Thus, when you sit down at another computer, open the browser and log into your account, the browser may offer to download these bookmarks. I don’t know how to do it with RSS, I haven’t tried it. I just know that synchronization is available in Opera and Google Chome, but I don’t know how it is in Firefox. For Chrome you need to install an extension, which, fortunately, is full in the Google online store and they are all free. But it’s not possible to save a list of RSS feeds to the server if it’s an unofficial extension, which, as far as I know, is not.

The disadvantages include too little functionality, but as you already understand, there are browser extensions that can expand it.

Firefox

To add an RSS feed to Firefox browser, you will need to open the RSS link (in the screenshot below you can see what such a button looks like. It is on all blogs.) then go to the “Bookmarks” menu, select “Subscribe to news feeds” if the browser did not immediately offer to subscribe. If offered, then in the screenshot below you can see what it looks like.

Internet Explorer

Opera

It's a little different here. Go to a website or blog, click on the RSS link and subscribe. How to subscribe in the screenshot below.

Online services for reading RSS feeds

Yandex.News

Here is the link . In the Yandex.News service, news is divided into categories. You can select the categories that you want to see in the “My News” tab, and also add your RSS news feeds of your favorite blogs or sites there. Are you interested this service? Then follow the link I gave you above.

If you have not used this service yet, then after clicking on the link you will have something like the following picture:

Just mark the categories that interest you. I choose: auto, internet, science, VKontakte. Scrolling below you will see a field for entering RSS links. Feel free to add your favorite blogs there.

In order to make changes in the future, you will need to go to the “My News” tab. On the right you will see the “Edit” button. By clicking, you can make the necessary changes.

The Old Reader

Another service for reading RSS feeds. I won’t tell you how and where to click, I think you can figure it out yourself. I can’t say that using online services is convenient. That's not mine. I only recognize the Yandex.News service and I don’t use it. I just liked The Old Reader better than all the others, so I included it here. Whether it's worth using is up to you to decide. Here is the link .

RSS readers installed on a computer

I find these readers to be the most effective. Why? Because they have one wonderful advantage, namely the desktop notification function. Therefore, you won’t have to keep your browser open all the time.

Such readers are needed by those who want to be the first to receive last news. For example, on the blog you are reading appears interesting competition. You will be the first to know about it, even when the author of the blog did not have time to do e-mail newsletter. Consequently, the chance of success of becoming the winner of the competition increases. Especially if the competition is related to the speed of task completion among participants or is limited in time. In general, it’s very convenient, I’ll say.

Now I will give you a brief overview of RSS readers that are installed on your computer. These are the readers I'm delighted with. I recently came across an English-language site that had a list of all RSS readers. I filtered everything out and decided to write a post. I found 2 programs that are worthy of attention.

QuiteRSS – as the most convenient and high-quality RSS reader

I discovered this program for myself relatively recently from the list of an English-language site. If I had not started writing this post, I would still be sitting on FeedReader, more about her later.

The program turned out to be the most convenient of all. I'm very pleased with the site favicons. In all other readers you have to read carefully and look for the right RSS feed. Here this matter is simplified by looking at the site logo. It is possible to sort by tags. Also very fine settings, when compared with other RSS readers. And here’s what the notification window about new posts on sites looks like:

This window can be edited in the settings. Width, number of records displayed, elements on and off.

I think that's enough. Maybe in the future I will do detailed analysis each program, although it is a bit boring. Let's see. Next program FeedReader.

FeedReader – as one of the most convenient RSS readers

As you already understood, before QuiteRSS, I used FeedReader. In principle, the program is good, but still, in my opinion, it loses to QuiteRSS. There are fewer settings and images are not loaded from RSS feeds.

Although there is one advantage that I don’t need, it still exists. This is synchronization with an FTP server.

Address, port, username, password - standard requirement to connect to the server via FTP protocol. Where can I get such a server? You can find hosting on the Internet and register on it. I recommend BeGet. If you decide to choose another one, then before registering, look at what the hosting provides. Among other things, there should be something like “Access to server via FTP”. If this is the case, then you can safely register. After registering in the control panel, create a user with access to the server via FTP. Then copy the data and enter it into the program, so the RSS feeds will be saved on the server. If you are sitting at another computer, you can always download these news feeds to this program. To do this, you need to specify the server data in the same way.

When new posts appear on sites, the tray icon changes its color from gray to orange. The program has a notification function in the form of a pop-up window, just like the previous program. But it either doesn’t pop up or does so very late.

Feed Notifier - like a compact RSS reader

The most compact I've ever seen. It is possible to use a proxy server, in the last post I mentioned proxies, you can go read it. The notification window works correctly. Here's what it looks like:

Everything you need for those who like not to miss competitions on blogs.

RSS FAST

The program is colorful and convenient, but the functionality is clearly not enough. Although it copes with the main function like a cute little thing. The program is paid. I now use and will continue to use QuiteRSS and for good reason. Why did I mention this program then? Firstly, just express your opinion, and secondly, insert this referral link, in the hope that something will fall into my hands. But after previous programs, no one is likely to buy RSS FAST. If you want more details, I have already given the link. There is a video and a description. All that is needed.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I decided to mention a few more programs and services. Many of listed programs do not have a pop-up window function. You can only find out about the news directly in the program. But still, perhaps you will find something for yourself.

Programs: FeedDemon, RSS Bandit, Abilon, GreatNews, RSSOwl, SE-ReadRSS.
Online services: feedly, newsblur, commafeed, reader.aol.ru, netvibes.

That's all. Subscribe, comment. Join the VKontakte group. Bye!

I present to your attention two wonderful programs for reading RSS feeds. What these programs have in common is that they are portable, you can install them on a flash drive and they will always be with you.

But first of all, you need to understand why these programs are needed in general, if you understand this, then that’s great! If you understand, but not completely, then I recommend reading the article.

NFReader

The RSS aggregator NFReader doesn't have a lot of settings, but that's what makes it remarkable. It is worth noting the following advantages of this program:

1) Simplicity. This is the most important advantage over others similar programs. Even an inexperienced user can understand the settings of this program.

2) It is small in size and does not require installation.

3) Supports export and import of channels using files in OPML format. You can export a single article to an html file.

5) Quite a fast program, not demanding on system resources.

6) Fully Russified.

Among the shortcomings, I would note the following:

1) There is no built-in browser.

2) Does not support attachments.

Although this can be considered a disadvantage, conditionally, since not everyone requires these functions.

GreatNews

The GreatNews RSS aggregator will appeal to those who like great functionality and a large number of settings.

Advantages of this program great amount, here are some of them:

1) There is a built-in browser that allows you to open links in new tabs.

2) You can synchronize with the Bloglines service.

3) Export and import channels using OPML and XML files.

4) There is an interesting option called Blog This, which allows you to post to a blog.

5) There is a Track Comments function with which you can read Comments on an article.

Of the minuses it is worth noting:

1) Not completely Russified.

2) For an inexperienced user It will be difficult to understand the settings.

P.S. Russian language is selected in the settings:

Viev\Language\Russian

After the first launch of the program, you will have to spend a couple of minutes deleting pre-installed RSS feeds (take a look, maybe something will come in handy 8)).

Internet users have long been used to obtain news from different resources. RSS aggregators– these are programs or web services that allow you to read RSS feeds of different sites. RSS aggregators are often called RSS readers. Sometimes you can come across the phrase: RSS reader.

Many people prefer to use software RSS readers. Some people use readers built into the browser. It’s more convenient for me to view the RSS feed in online reader services. The main advantage of such services is that you do not need to install any additional programs to your PC. All added feeds in the service account are updated automatically. All that remains is to read their contents at a time convenient for me.

Having tried many different online RSS readers, I have selected my favorites:

Google Reader
Reader from Google. It has everything for comfortable reading of tapes - convenient, fast, customizable. All on native language. Ability to export and import RSS feeds to an OPML file. I didn't notice any downsides to the service. My choice.

Netvibes
Handsome and functional service. What sets it apart from many RSS reader services is that it is fully customizable appearance. You can change the language, skin, text color, location, number and size of blocks. Lots of settings to help you customize everything.
It is also possible to export RSS feeds to OPML, but not to import.

Newsgator
A fairly convenient RSS aggregator with typical structure. Clear interface, despite the fact that the Russian language is not supported. It is possible to import RSS feeds into an OPML file. Among the disadvantages of this RSS reader:
— There is no possibility to export tapes.
— Low operating speed.

Yandex.Lenta
The readers themselves guessed from whom.
The reader interface is simple - in the Yandex style. It is possible to import OPML files. There is no option to export tapes. Everything is in Russian.

NewsAlloy
Quite a high quality reader. Everything is done in light colors. There is export of tapes to an OPML file, but no import. Another disadvantage is that there is no support for the Russian language.

Bloglines
A fairly well-known online RSS reader. The service seems to be normal, but it seemed to me that the usability is lame. You cannot import and export a list of RSS feeds and there is no support for the Russian language.

Summary.

Online RSS readers – useful tool, which saves time and traffic. Many users prefer to use them instead of visiting many sites. Of course, I could not test all the services, since there are quite a lot of them. If you find something interesting that could be added here, let me know. I also ask you to take part in the survey: “Which RSS reader do you use?” I also advise you to subscribe to receive new posts from this blog via RSS.