After posting my review (of sorts) last week, my experience with Digg Reader took a turn for the worse.
At some point before the weekend, it stopped showing the number of unread items next to each subscription and then failed to show new content reliably enough to be usable.
Put simply, it stopped doing what I needed it to do.
I understand it’s a work in progress and there are developments coming, but an RSS reader needs to get the basics right from day one.
And for now, Digg Reader fails miserably on that front.
For the time being, I’ve switched to ‘The Old Reader’ which is much uglier than Digg Reader and its performance isn’t quite so snappy. Still, it offers all the functionality I need and that’s the main thing.
I’ll keep an eye on Digg Reader’s progress in the coming weeks, but they need to get the basics fixed quickly for this thing to stand any chance of surviving now it’s out in the wild.
Yes, I tried Digg Reader over the weekend and remember thinking: "That's the last time I follow one of his recommendations!"
ReplyDelete;-)
I've lost track of how many Google Reader alternatives I've tried, but I finally settled on Feedly. It took me a while to 'get it' (I almost dismissed it immediately), but after a few setting changes and the installation of a GR-style skin, I've got it functioning in a very similar way to GR, and in some ways better. I don't know whether it will do what you want, but it does seem more 'customisable' than some other readers.
Of course, you've probably already tried Feedly, found it useless and are now thinking: "That's the last time I follow one of his recommendations!"
I know, I know! :-\ I thought Digg were on to something but I think they've fudged it, sadly. I've been a long-time fan of Digg from all the way back in 2006!!) so I was hoping their Reader would be a triumph. I'm under no illusions now though. :-(
ReplyDeleteLike you, I've tried a lot of Google Reader alternatives. I did try using feedly for a few months back in 2010 but ended up going back to Google Reader because I much preferred its bare-bones UI.
I did poke around with Feedly a bit yesterday when I finally accepted that Digg Reader couldn't be relied upon, but I couldn't find a way of importing feeds via an OPML file. It turns out there was a technical issue with Feedly which temporarily prevented this and they've fixed it (according to their blog post dated today - http://blog.feedly.com/2013/07/03/the-fix-to-the-missing-feeds-issue-is-here/) so I'll have to give it another go.
That said, I'm quite liking 'the old reader' now. :-)