Settings

Theme

Show HN: Forked and updated the Chrome RSS subscription extension Google removed

chrome.google.com

35 points by justinkelly 13 years ago · 18 comments

Reader

justinkellyOP 13 years ago

Hi Guys

Like many on the list I'm a heavy chrome and rss user. Though the demise of Google Reader is no great surprise I was grumpy that Google removed the RSS Subscription extension from the Chrome webstore.

I've forked Google's extension, updated it and loaded back into the Chrome webstore.

Added support for Feedly, NewsBlur and The Old Reader. Removed Google Reader, iReader, My Yahoo

Also code is now up on github

* https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/rss-subscription-e...

* https://github.com/justinkelly/chrome-rss

Cheers

Justin

josteink 13 years ago

At this point, it seems like working with Google technologies (like Chrome and reader) is turning more into doing a uphill battle where you have to hack your way to an end, as opposed to just doing what you want.

At that point, why not just use something open and welcoming instead?

  • platinum1 13 years ago

    How is being able to fork an open source extension to an open source web browser an "uphill battle" and not "open and welcoming?"

    • josteink 13 years ago

      Currently Chrome is not an open-source browser. Chromium is.

      As for Chrome, unless you are willing to go through hoops, it is only willing to install extensions from the Chrome Web Store.

      You are now jumping through hoops to reinstall something you had installed which Google removed from their web-store.

      Now Google which is your application (Chrome) and service (Reader)-provider, is working against you instead of enabling you. It didn't use to be that way, but now Google has changed.

      That's the uphill battle. That's the not enabling part. That's the not open and welcoming. Contrast that to for instance Firefox and you will find a completely different picture.

      Firefox has no mixed interests here, and that means they wont pull moves like this.

latraveler 13 years ago

I asked this question on SO the other day, perhaps someone here knows a solution ...

For the past few years I've been using Google Reader to archive my Twitter and Facebook history for various reasons. Obviously yesterday's news really threw a wrench in everything.

My problem ...

I need a way to export every 'article' from 3 subscriptions I have (not just the subscription URL) and import those into a good RSS reader (open to suggestions). Anyone have any advice?

http://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/41671/google-read...

  • tomschlick 13 years ago

    facebook and twitter both allow you to export data directly from them in a human & machine readable format (nice html pages along with json)... why would you use rss instead?

    • RexRollman 13 years ago

      It the case of Twitter, that is a really recent development. Perhaps the poster's workflow predates that?

crazysim 13 years ago

Any idea on the licensing issues? It would be great if Google "released" the source.

  • justinkellyOP 13 years ago

    Google's Chrome extensions are BSD like license

    Assuming you've installed the extension you can grab its source from Chrome .config directory * which I imported and updated to github: https://github.com/justinkelly/chrome-rss

    The actual original source in SVN/Git may already be public but i've no idea where it is - somewhere deep in the chromium repo??

Keyboard Shortcuts

j
Next item
k
Previous item
o / Enter
Open selected item
?
Show this help
Esc
Close modal / clear selection