Google to revive RSS support in Chrome for Android

In 2013, Google discontinued its RSS app Google Reader, eliciting widespread criticism. On Wednesday, the search advertising biz reversed its recent non-interest in RSS and announced plans to experiment with an RSS-based content subscription feature in the Android version of Chrome. "In the coming weeks, some Android users in …

[currynut]

forgive me

Disinterest = impartiality, ok, and not "lack of interest" (or uninterested) as suggested here. Cut it out.

Not massively interested in the story myself but the early reference dragged me in. Not sure/doubtful RSS will take off again but I am the worst foreteller of the future

[martyn.hare]

It will if..

Folks continue the trend of seeking out independent sites for content again. There is a big push towards independent publishing as a result of dirty shenanigans by all the large companies and push notifications don’t cut it for all use cases.

Google needs people to use their browser on Android to limit adblocking until they’ve completed their slow pivot towards being a (mostly) paid services provider.

[LosD]

Re: forgive me

It's both, by most dictionaries:

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/disinterest

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/disinterest

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disinterest

Is this something that comes from long misuse? Maybe, probably. But it IS now the norm, even if you may not like it. Language evolves.

[diodesign]

Disinterest v uninterest

Hi -- yeah, it's just a tick some writers and editors have, that they mean uninterested and they write disinterest. It's fixed. Don't forget to email [e-mail] if you spot anything wrong, ta.

C.

[elbisivni]

I loved Google Reader, both for personal and professional use, and it was not a good day (for me) when it went away. Support for RSS in general seemed to wane a bit after that, with many feeds either disappearing, or becoming flaky.

I still miss it, but not enough to install Chrome on my increasingly elderly machines.

[Shadow Systems]

RSS is dead?

*Looks at my over full RSS news feeds folder in my desktop Outlook 2010*

Ummm... since when? I've been getting a constant stream of RSS stories for at least the last two decades, including ElReg. The only time I ever notice any slowing of the flood is during major holidays when everyone is off getting drunk. (I approve!)

Just because $Company (Apple, Google, etc) is doing it (again) all of a sudden doesn't mean it ever died in the first place, it just means that company is trying to hoodwink folks into (re)using their (cr)app to consume said RSS feeds.

A freeware RSS reader, Save As file, import into Outlook, & hey look! I get RSS stories just like I get all the rest of my news. No need to deal with $Company at all.

Dear Google. Your habit of giving something & then taking it away like an Olympic Gold medel yoyo speed flinger is what prompted me to stop dealing with the bulk of your offerings. Google Docs may be nice for collaboration, but that assumes you won't take your ball & go home like a whiney little brat throwing a temper tantrum. Google Calendar might be nice, but what happens when you decide to kill it? Google photo storeage might be useful (for you), but what happens to all our stuff when you decide to rip the service out from under our feet? You're acting like Microsoft in the "Offer $Service one day, kill $Service a little while later" catagory of idiocy. Same goes for RSS feeds. You had a reader, killed it, & now want to rerelease another reader in the hopes folks have forgotten that you've already shit all over us once before?

*Snorts*

RSS isn't dead, it's not in need of revival, it just needs someone to do a DDG search for "free RSS reader".

[entfe001]

Re: RSS is dead?

I never used the Google thingy, instead I had them on Firefox.

Once they shut down support, I integrated the feeds to Thunderbird, the mail client (btw, I still can't understand why so many people use web browsers at home for mail, but that's another story). Let me say that I regret I didn't make the change earlier.

Also RSS is not dead, although some sites dropped support on web makeovers and others provide a rather bad/useless service (shame on the broken Lowering the Bar feed). Nonetheless, right now I'm actively following 16 feeds: 8 blogs, 3 report repositories, one service disruption announcement and 4 news sites, ElReg being one of them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: RSS is dead?

As a Firefox user, happy to report the Livemarks add-on works great for RSS feeds.

[Sorry that handle is already taken.]

I still use RSS quite a lot

It helps me keep track of what I've missed and see article summaries without having to sort through multiple pages of a dynamic website, The Register being an excellent example of this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I still use RSS quite a lot

All those pointy-headed brainiacs and they still make a boat-load of idiotic decisions.

[Ken Moorhouse]

Blogspot Email Subscription

I read somewhere that the above facility is being phased out in July. Is this announcement about RSS part of some Big Plan?

[Is It Me]

I pretty much just use RSS for following a few webcomics now, oh and BOFH just in case I don't notice it when I have a scan through El Reg and find that the free level of Feedly works for that

[mark l 2]

I came to this article from the ELReg RSS feed with Firefox and the Livemarks add on. And also follow the BBC news feed. So some of us still use RSS a lot.

Google getting back in on RSS can only mean they have come up with a way of using RSS to collect more personal data or throw ads at you though.

[Natalie Gritpants Jr]

The problem with really useful free stuff

is that if it can't be used to make money the big companies will actively try to replace it. RSS is one example (anyone can run TinyTinyRSS on their own computer and get a nice ad-free news reader that works well on a mobile or desktop web browser) but there are others that are under attack e.g. FLAC

[ICam]

Re: The problem with really useful free stuff

Another TinyTinyRSS user here. I've been self-hosting it on my VPS for quite a while now. I don't log in to it that much, as I prefer to get everything sent via the daily email digest instead.

If the site doesn't have an RSS feed, I just use some Perl with XML::RSS::SimpleGen launched via cron to generate a local RSS feed and subscribe TinyTinyRSS to that. I follow the usual feeds from blogs and sites like The Register; the Perl scripts create feeds for certain tags on The Register and create feeds for my MythTV system such as new programmes, recorded programmes and upcoming recordings.

RSS never disappeared for some of us...

[RLWatkins]

Why?

Why would they do that? Why would anyone?

[IGnatius T Foobar !]

RSS is essential.

With the big tech firms acting as censorship nannies, the flow of information must be democratized. RSS can be a big part of that.

[richardcox13]

Vivaldi

This would be anything to do with Vivaldi adding support (in preview) over the last few updates?

[petef]

Show me the money

I am a long time consumer of RSS (and indeed NNTP). The abandonment of Google Reader was a shock but I found that Feedly filled the gap.

RSS/Atom is a great way to disseminate content. It is poor at tracking personal user data and delivering ads. I genuinely wonder why Google choose to reinvest in it now.

[Matthew "The Worst Writer on the Internet" Saroff]

Re: Show me the money

I use Quite Reader myself, I dropped Feedreader after no updates in about 10 years.

[Redact Ted]

Google Reader was a cut above

Was quite a blow when the goog pulled the cork on it.

Bit hard to monetise rss feeds though, ad's don't seem to make it through to the reader unless they are embedded. Which is generally why I use rss.

Though i do find it easy to get overwhelmed if I sub to too many or too active a site.

Using feedly now but never really been happy with it.