posted on Monday, April 07, 2008 10:15 PM by thomasswilliams

Why I Finally Switched From Bloglines

 Bloglines was my RSS reader of choice for almost 4 years. I loved using it because it was web-based, easy to use, fast, dependable, full-featured (in 2004), and free.

Unfortunately Bloglines was ignored for a couple of years by the developers, during which time I stuck with it doggedly anyway. It got slightly less dependable (i.e. the notorious "Bloglines plumber"), and other readers overtook it in terms of functionality. Surprisingly, it was the new beta version which eventually drove me away - it was a case of too little, too late - and worryingly, the beta initially didn't work properly for IE which made me go back to the "classic"/2004 version.

Soon after, I decided to go looking at the various free readers on the market.

Google Reader is web-based, easy to use, fast, free, and has plenty of features to boot. It's even better than the Bloglines beta, and there's little worry about Google suspending development. My OPML imported easily, and I started reading feeds straight away...using it is almost enjoyable.

Some features that stand out on Google Reader are the speed, the ability to find new blogs which is almost too simple, offline viewing (IE only at the moment), and editing feeds and re-ordering them is a cinch.

YMMV - I need free and web-based, I'm not fussed by Digg or any "social" features, and the reader absolutely must work with IE and Flock. A good round-up of feed reader alternatives can be found at Wikipedia.

Goodbye Bloglines, may you live a long and healthy life, and perhaps we shall meet again.

UPDATE: Matt tells me that offline viewing works fine in Firefox. Fixed (thanks Matt)!

Tags: reader, rss, bloglines, google reader, switch

Comments

# re: Why I Finally Switched From Bloglines @ Tuesday, April 08, 2008 6:25 AM

Heya Thomas,

I made the same decision to move away from Bloglines - but for me this occurred perhaps over a year ago. I was a die-hard Bloglines fan but eventually just got fed-up with the issues they had. It wasn't just the "plumber", it was also that it would often hang or timeout which, because it would load *all* my new posts at once and immediately mark them read, would often mean hundreds of posts were lost. Incredibly frustrating.

Google Reader has been flawless. One feature you didn't mention that I love is keyboard control - a wonderful feature when you read many posts. And I've never missed a post with GR.

Also, a correction, offline viewing under Google Reader has always worked perfectly fine under Firefox.

Bloglines may be improving, the beta looked OK the last time I revisited it, but they're now going to have to deliver a compelling reason for me to switch back.

Cheers,
Matt

MattyT

# re: Why I Finally Switched From Bloglines @ Tuesday, April 08, 2008 10:04 PM

Thanks for the update Matt, have fixed the post.

I do use the keyboard controls occasionally, but Bloglines had this too (using the same keys, J & K...coincidence?)

thomasswilliams