Show HN: A simple and powerful RSS reader for the web

bigiain · 2024-08-21T05:55:53 1724219753

Have you run this by RachelByTheBay's feed reader testing thing?

http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2024/05/30/fs/

Probably worth at least reading through this post: http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2024/08/02/fs/ to learn from other feed reader developer's mistakes...

ranger_danger · 2024-08-22T01:43:44 1724291024

where is this tester thing? can't find it on either of those links or the pages they link to

unholygoat · 2024-08-23T12:20:55 1724415655

find the tester page here - https://rachelbythebay.com/fs/ You will need to use the contact form to get a key that will enable you to use the service then you can plug your key into the url provided to see your test results page. Ez-pz.

breput · 2024-08-21T02:48:36 1724208516

A couple of quick suggestions:

* Provide some example feeds in the left side bar when the list is empty, so people new to RSS aren't just looking at an empty, black page. Maybe https://news.ycombinator.com/rss ?

* Provide an OPML import option so experienced RSS-using users can quickly populate their list of feeds and compare your project with whatever they are currently using.

quectophoton · 2024-08-21T14:34:10 1724250850

* Sanitize inputs.

* Don't build HTML by interpolating arbitrary strings whose content you don't know 100% in advance. Actually, avoid interpolating at all if you can use a builder that takes care of all the escaping for you.

* Double-check that those `/getFeed?url=` and `/fetchArticleText?url=` (and any other similar stuff) don't recursively fetch URLs pointing to themselves or to the same domain they're being hosted at. And then triple-check again.

lexoj · 2024-08-21T12:10:32 1724242232

If you’re into local-first RSS, check out my reader which generates markdown files and can be consumed with any markdown reader.

https://github.com/piqoni/matcha

kevincox · 2024-08-21T11:14:24 1724238864

I tried adding my website (https://kevincox.ca) and just got a broken image on the sidebar. Tried another site and nothing changed. I don't see any way to manage these feeds either. Maybe it lacks feed discovery? But it should still be giving an error if it couldn't read the feed.

gumby · 2024-08-21T21:31:29 1724275889

Looks like a nice start!

What I miss is good filtering and search within the feeds. Some readers make "smart folders". But usually the searches are pretty primitive: not searching metadata (like starred or read/unread, in or out of another named search, etc), lacking regular expressions etc). Also no way to apply changes (e.g. read/unread) to multiple selections, etc.

I'll look in from time to time -- might be worth a switch.

robdelacruz · 2024-08-21T08:33:20 1724229200

Check out my FreeRSS web-based portal I made a while back. Inspired by the defunct iGoogle.

https://github.com/robdelacruz/freerss

https://freerss.robdelacruz.xyz/

Unfortunately, it needs to be revamped or recreated from scratch because I can no longer recompile it due to the changes in SvelteJS.

butz · 2024-08-21T14:40:01 1724251201

Is this thing broken or just server hugged? Added HN feed - icon is blocked because of "Tracking", feed is not displayed.

InMice · 2024-08-21T12:47:23 1724244443

Simple? yes. Powerful, how? No power to delete feeds once added, for example. Still I like the effort and will follow the project.

quectophoton · 2024-08-21T14:10:17 1724249417

> Powerful, how?

It's a hidden feature, actually. Just think of all the power contained in only these two lines:

* https://github.com/georg-stone/Feedbomb/blob/aa0a969fb45390e...

The more you look, the more power you can find.

thenegation · 2024-08-21T02:55:20 1724208920

How do I delete a feed that I added, other than deleting it from the `localStorage`?

system7rocks · 2024-08-21T04:54:26 1724216066

This is really intriguing. I downloaded UnRead which has a lot of buzz, but I was fine with NetNewsWire from before. And I really don't use them that much. Much prefer the web browser.

everythingabili · 2024-08-21T09:40:51 1724233251

https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml

Doesn't work.

nosioptar · 2024-08-22T19:49:31 1724356171

The input to enter a URL is nearly invisible. I only found it on accident when I fat fingered the '+'.

georg-stone · 2024-08-21T21:29:35 1724275775

Thank you all for your comments! Since this project is in its early stages, your feedback is much appreciated.

himanshu7net · 2024-08-22T06:46:26 1724309186

Thats "too" much simple

I need some customization features similar to feedly

mgnn · 2024-08-21T07:46:24 1724226384

Can you add Youtube channels to the feed?

georg-stone · 2024-08-21T21:30:39 1724275839

Yes, you can. You can add it by its URL like this: https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id={CHANNEL ID}

Swarming · 2024-08-21T14:51:17 1724251877

I used to love using RSS readers to get my news, but at this point so few of the papers/websites I read actually offer non-truncated RSS feeds that I don't see the viability of RSS readers anymore. I guess they did that to prevent people getting around paywalls.