Google Reader going away felt like the beginning of the end the internet as I knew it. I miss websites

"I miss websites". Damn that hit. I realise the only place pushing me to an actual website these days are my RSS feeds (self hosted FreshRSS), and HN. Maybe very occasional share on LinkedIn.

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danesparza a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'm still bitter about Google Reader going away. I endorse this sentiment.

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gertlex a day ago | parent | next [-]

Me too, but there were some replacements that made me happy because they fixed some irk with google's version. (I think I used Commafeed?)

I eventually got away from subscribing to like 50 webcomics (all I used RSS for... most other stuff was too high-volume, and I liked reading everything in my feed, iirc) though and stopped using an RSS feed altogether.

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fsflover a day ago | parent | prev [-]

What prevents you from using RSS now? Outsourcing your RSS feed to a megacorp sounds like a horrible idea.

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inigyou a day ago | parent [-]

Who do you outsource yours to, or do you read with curl?

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frollogaston 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

There have been many RSS aggregators since before Google Reader existed, most of them local

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al_borland a day ago | parent | prev [-]

I use NetNewsWire. It’s free, open-source, and explicitly says not to send money.

> First thing: don’t send money. This app is written for love, not money. :)

https://github.com/Ranchero-Software/NetNewsWire/blob/main/T...

	▲	fsflover 16 hours ago \| parent [-]
		See also: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/06/hate-algorithm-rss-one...

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tombert a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Yeah. There honestly was a purity to the disconnected nature of shitty Geocities and Angelfires pages, where filled with amateurs writing shitty HTML just because they thought it would be cool to have their own web site.

That's not a dig, to be clear. I was one of those kids writing shitty HTML for Geocities.

I don't hate the modern internet, but I feel like there's roughly now about ~10 sites that I visit frequently, whereas when I was a teenager there were lots more. Maybe it's just my "old man yells at cloud" moment.

	▲	betenoire 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Same, I was one of them, too. It used to feel like a place you'd discover things. Now we are led to them.