Now that it's more convenient for me to run containers at home, I thought I'd write a bit about web apps I am enjoying.

First up, FreshRSS, a web feed aggregator. I used to make heavy use of Google Reader until Google killed it, and although a bunch of self-hosted cloned sprung up very quickly afterwards, I didn't transition to any of them.

Then followed a number of years within which, in retrospect, I basically didn't do a great job of organising reading the web. This lasted until a couple of years ago when, on a whim, I tried out NetNewsWire for iOS. NetNewsWire is a well-established and much-loved feed reader for Mac which I've never used. I used the iOS version in isolation for a long time: only dipping into web feeds on my phone and never on another device.

I'd like to see the old web back, and do my part to make that happen. I've continually published rss and atom feeds for my own blog. I'm also trying to blog more: this might be easier now that Twitter (which, IMHO, took a lot of the energy for quick writing out of blogging) is mortally wounded.

So, I'm giving FreshRSS a go. Early signs are good: it's fast, lightweight, easy to use, vaguely resembles how I remember Google Reader, and has a native dark-mode. It's still early days building up a new list of feeds to follow. I'll be sure to share interesting ones as I discover them!


Comments

comment 1

Hi,

FreshRSS is great but:

  • Miniflux is an minimalist alternative with a nicer Web UI.
  • Tiny Tiny RSS allows to republish links in a RSS feed (it's a feature i didn't find in FreshRSS). Its UI is inspired by Google RSS.

You may want to try Fluent Reader (https://hyliu.me/fluent-reader/) desktop app for reading your RSS feeds. It synchronize with FreshRSS.

Thank you for your blog.

Comment by Biapy,
comment 1

Try TTRSS also. It has android client, chrome extension (unofficial) to watch for new articles. Web interface looks better IMHO

Comment by librarian,
comment 1
Does FreshRSS have an Android client? I'm using Selfoss (PHP) and Reader for Selfoss (Android) at home and I'm also very happy. The web app can even use sqlite instead of a full sql server in case you don't have many users or feeds.
Comment by Marcos Dione,
comment 4
Thanks for the recommendations. I can remember TTRSS as one of the names of the things which popped up pretty quickly after Google Reader shut down. Is this thread representative of the dev’s attitude or were they having a particularly bad day? If it is, I consider that a red flag.
jon,