I use Newsblur currently. I got into Newsblur from Tiny Tiny RSS because I was terrible at keeping it near current; and found it kinda miserably supported or messy come upgrade time. Self hosting Friendica just kinda underscored for me that maybe this is something I might wanna bring in house again.
Revision: And I was kinda hoping I had just gotten better about keeping such things up to date durring the intervening years.
I actually wouldn’t mind going entirely non-cloud with RSS. I just also like being able to RSS from multiple devices. My ideal would be just some sort of way to synchronize read status of RSS readers via syncthing or bluetooth or something.
EDIT: Hey @maiki maybe split this off into a RSS Reader software thread? As ive got possible alternatives to discuss.
I saw that in the FDroid repo. I hope that becomes a common feature for RSS, like OPML. We need more file based things, I like them!
Anyhow, I have a media/gaming computer that doubles as the server that does stuff for me at home. And one thing is run newsboat. I like it because it actually keeps an archive of the feeds for me, and is easy to backup. I have it check once a day I think, and if RSS feeds update more often and I miss content I don’t care.
This system is in place because I do a specific thing when I read feeds, and the specific thing I do is always at home, so I decided to just make it a home thing. But I’d probably host it online if I did this at more locations. I love the text interface, it has that mutt workflow down, ya know?
A lot of this is down to me just being used to having access to RSS in situations where im idle and don’t have a keyboard-based-device handy.
You have me thinking I could just just change my behavior and work on something else in those idle momments. As I was at one time quite fond of ssh+snownews.
More things to consider:
Better device for mobile computing, one with a hardware keyboard.
some sort of rss2imap
Make RSS a lptop only thing. Fill time previously used by phone+RSS with other thing. Possibly lisp. (May require better device.)
I use talkgroup, because idling here means valuable conversations. But I also try to read more. And also try to avoid feeling like I need to idle.
What I mean is, if I find myself idling and without purpose (as opposed to queuing, for instance) I think of all the things I’d rather be doing without purpose: video games, RSS feeds under my heavy blanket, “wrestling” with a puny 7 year-old by laying there and vaguely feeling their foam-like form crash upon my rock form partially concealed under the heavy blanket, thinking about writing that thing about the new heavy blanket and how cool it is.
I think of Walden whenever I boredly reach for my phone.
Haha, I so endorse RSS! I just am on this deeper kick of really figuring out the person OS, ya know?
I wanted to add: I like binge reading personal blogs.
I keep up on kinda time sensitive news, but just barely; if I need to hear about it, someone will tell me. But it’s nice to know, for instance, what the EFF is defending.
So I kinda keep up on those. But I like to save people, especially ones I know, to read dozens at a time. It is like reading a chapter book for a month of your friend!
We talk a lot about the tech stack, but I’m also curious about how folks read RSS!
Talkgroup is starting to fill that slow workday groove for me; like I am literally waiting here idle as im supposed to be myself available to a leadership team meeting, but they dont want me till an unknown time that could be any moment. But there are times im idle with no laptop around; and thats usually RSS time for me.
A lot of my RSS angsting probably means Ive got to go through my feeds and cut some back; im probably spending too much time wading through them. Also a diet of RSS might mean Friendica could serve them to me too. I find I need to do that periodically.
Yeah, it’s difficult to balance archiving versus information overload. The reason I’m archiving is because often when I need to reference something, the easiest way is to have that text representation available (also, want a dope AF mobile reader experience? Configure newsboat to save out copies to a directory you have syncthing-ing to yer mobile. Boom!).
I find it easier to ignore things as a command line. Newsblur caught my eye, I’d see an image, read a snippet, get caught up. And that is fun, but I have this whole back catalog, so I’m cutting out RSS as a chaos field. I get enough elsewhere.
After discovering RSS bridge; im shipping a lot of non-text via RSS too these days. Webcomics, my fiance’s art posts; and have been using it for a while to follow youtube accounts without a google account. (Possible without rss bridge).
Im also in general more prone to treat information as dispossable than you are I think. My general strategy avoids archiving; and instead keeping notes somewhere referencing the bits I think might be relevant again in the future.
Additional thing: I may not want to ever leave newsblur. I just remembered how heavily ive grown to make use of the email newsletter->RSS functionality. Its really convenient for converting a lot of things to RSS that ought to have been in the first place.
And it’s a nice way to blend into a crowd. Newsblur as a proxy (to an extent) is a major feature for me!
I wonder. Because I do a lot with data these days. I dispose of more than I keep, but maybe I’m not really playing the same game. I’m actually trying to explain to you folks, it is just a process. This morning, I drew this between caffienation units:
I need to get some scripting under my belt, so I can step up my archiving game. I don’t actually need to keep it myself, I just need it to be expressed at will, near the speed of thought, on systems that are open and free.
I started using FreshRSS recently, loving it. I’m doing a refresh on how I consume feeds, and FreshRSS is so light weight I can run it on a DreamHost shared host. I have all the feeds update once a day, but when I read them I use a client to sync them locally. It is so much faster this way, since all the messages are waiting for me.
I love the image above, but am also happy to say my system is both more simple and complex. But maybe overall more elegant?
I started using multiple computers after solely using a laptop for years. FreshRSS can run on shared hosting, has everything TTRSS has as far as my use is concerned, and I can use a few clients such as the FeedReader in GNOME, which works surprisingly well for my use case.
The big deal for me is setting longer polling on firehose feeds, so they don’t dominate my mind. I read all my feeds each morning, and am normally done in about 15 minutes, if that.
If something is worth mentioning I either do so if time sensitive, otherwise I mark it and move on. A good idea sticks around, and doesn’t need to be rushed. When my tasks activate to process marked posts, the good stuff rises to the top.
