InoReader: fast RSS reader for the Web
Google Reader will be terminated in just a couple of weeks and if you have not yet looked around for a suitable alternative, you may want to start doing so.
InoReader is a web-based RSS reader that offers the most important characteristics that I'm interested in: speed, ease of use and an option to only display titles by default for faster browsing. It has a couple of shortcomings as well, like missing sync, but more about that later.
First thing you may want to do after setting up an account (Facebook, Google or direct registration available) is add RSS feeds to it. You can either add feeds manually or import an OPML file which most feed readers support.
The import should not take too long after which all feeds of the file are added to the reader. Your folder structure is carried over as well so that you do not have to resort feeds based on that. The import does not add tags or labels yet but at least support for importing tags is planned for a future version of the application.
The left pane displays your subscriptions, a search option and links to statistics and favorites. You can crate new folders here and drag & drop feeds to sort them into different folders or root.
Subscriptions are sorted alphabetically by default which you can switch to manual drag & drop mode so that your own order is displayed instead here.
The search is a bit on the slow side of things but works fine otherwise. You can exclude keywords with the "-" operator followed by a keyword and search for exact phrases by quoting them. Note that the search returns only case sensitive results. The OR operator is the third and final option which you can use to find articles matching any of the search terms you enter.
The default layout displays feed names, titles, date of publication and a couple of options in form of icons. You can use the theme switcher at the bottom of the screen to switch to a compact theme which reduces the line height and a couple of other factors so that more items are displayed on the screen at the same time.
A click on a post opens it right on the screen for you to read through. You can click on the title in this view mode to go to the website the article was posted on, or use the menu at the bottom of it to interact with it instead. Here you can share the article, like or favorite it, or add (local) comments to it.
You can tap on the shortcuts k or j to jump to the previous or next article in line, or use the buttons on top to do so. The service supports about 20 different shortcuts that make your life easier on the site. Use p and n to move to the previous or next article in list view (without opening it), enter to expand or collapse articles in list view, r to refresh the feeds or d to hide or show the left pane.
The statistics page displays interesting stats about your feed reading habits. It displays your overall reading statistics over time, the radio of read vs unread articles, and subscription statistics.
Mobile version
You can point your smartphone to the same web address to access a mobile version of the feed reader or the desktop version. Just sign in with your account or create a new one, and you will see a list of your feed folders and feeds on the start page.
The actual articles are displayed efficiently on the screen. You can tap on any to load the article right in the application.
You may want to check the settings as they offer several interesting preferences that you can change. This includes the default storage location, the use of plug-ins and JavaScript, zoom levels, fit to screen options and bandwidth management including a preloading feature.
Tips
- You can mark articles older than a certain age as read.
- A bookmarklet and a Google Chrome extension is available. The bookmarklet enables you to subscribe to RSS feeds directly, while the Chrome extension highlights the unread feed count in the browser's address bar.
- The yellow stripes in front of articles mark unseen articles. Those articles are new and have never been listed before. This is different from read and unread articles which may have been listed in the reader for a certain amount of time.
Verdict
If you require a web-based feed reader and do not need synchronization with other devices, then you may want to try out InoReader as it enables you to browse through a list of new articles fast. While there are still things to come, like tag import, it is offering a near-complete feature set already that leaves little to be desired.
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Doesn’t Windows 8 know that www. or http:// are passe ?
Well it is a bit difficulty to distinguish between name.com domains and files for instance.
I know a service made by google that is similar to Google bookmarks.
http://www.google.com/saved
@Ashwin–Thankful you delighted my comment; who knows how many “gamers” would have disagreed!
@Martin
The comments section under this very article (3 comments) is identical to the comments section found under the following article:
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/15/netflix-is-testing-game-streaming-on-tvs-and-computers/
Not sure what the issue is, but have seen this issue under some other articles recently but did not report it back then.
Omg a badge!!!
Some tangible reward lmao.
It sucks that redditors are going to love the fuck out of it too.
With the cloud, there is no such thing as unlimited storage or privacy. Stop relying on these tech scums. Purchase your own hardware and develop your own solutions.
This is a certified reddit cringe moment. Hilarious how the article’s author tries to dress it up like it’s anything more than a png for doing the reddit corporation’s moderation work for free (or for bribes from companies and political groups)
Almost al unlmited services have a real limit.
And this comment is written on the dropbox article from August 25, 2023.
First comment > @ilev said on August 4, 2012 at 7:53 pm
For the God’s sake, fix the comments soon please! :[
Yes. Please. Fix the comments.
With Google Chrome, it’s only been 1,500 for some time now.
Anyone who wants to force me in such a way into buying something that I can get elsewhere for free will certainly never see a single dime from my side. I don’t even know how stupid their marketing department is to impose these limits on users instead of offering a valuable product to the paying faction. But they don’t. Even if you pay, you get something that is also available for free elsewhere.
The algorithm has also become less and less savvy in terms of e.g. English/German translations. It used to be that the bot could sort of sense what you were trying to say and put it into different colloquialisms, which was even fun because it was like, “I know what you’re trying to say here, how about…” Now it’s in parts too stupid to translate the simplest sentences correctly, and the suggestions it makes are at times as moronic as those made by Google Translations.
If this is a deep-learning AI that learns from users’ translations and the phrases they choose most often – which, by the way, is a valuable, moneys worthwhile contribution of every free user to this project: They invest their time and texts, thereby providing the necessary data for the AI to do the thing as nicely as they brag about it in the first place – alas, the more unprofessional users discovered the translator, the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, the greater the aggregate of linguistically illiterate users has become, and the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, as it now learns the drivel of every Tom, Dick and Harry out there, which is why I now get their Mickey Mouse language as suggestions: the inane language of people who can barely spell the alphabet, it seems.
And as a thank you for our time and effort in helping them and their AI learn, they’ve lowered the limit from what was once 5,000 to now 1,500…? A big “fuck off” from here for that! Not a brass farthing from me for this attitude and behaviour, not in a hundred years.