As a maintainer of an RSS reader app which has its own inventory for suggested feeds, one of the uphill battles is sudden removal of RSS support from various sites. I have a list of feeds which are updated once a month and everytime some sites (both niche and big ones) drop RSS support (Reuters and YouTube removing option to export subscriptions as OPML are major blows in last few months).
The reason for these removals is also never given. If you look at those sites now, you'd feel RSS support never existed and nobody used them. So the reason for removal could be anyone's guess. Perhaps RSS icon didn't look good with other social media icons on home page, server serving the RSS feed shut down and no one bothered to check, forgot to add RSS option in new design/refactor or some PM didn't find RSS feed engaging enough and actively killed it.
These are still four more steps then what it takes to directly install from the Play Store. Most people would view any of these four steps as hurdle.
> And you won't need to go to the settings the next time, it'll just work.
You will still have to find the apk when there is an update, download it and confirm install. There are still three steps to update the apk compared to Play Store's one tap (or even zero clicks if automatic updates are on). Only "Allow installing from this source" step is removed when updating the app.
We have created a privacy focused, ad-free, material designed RSS reader app for Android - Plenary. No login/account creation required. No analytics/trackers. No ads. No servers to store your data.
Main obstacle when introducing new users to the world of RSS feeds is the discovery of new feeds. Plenary tries to solve this in novel ways:
Local News:
Select a country and Plenary will show a list of top news sources for that country. Tapping on any news source will open a webpage containing all the RSS feeds available of that source.
RSS Assistant:
Create RSS feed from top sites such as Reddit, Google News, YouTube, Medium, Wordpress, Wikipedia, Tumblr in 2-3 simple steps (some of the assistant options are part of Plenary premium)
Recommended Feeds:
Curated list of more than 200+ recommended feeds spread across various categories which include Programming, Technology, Web Development, Android Development etc
There is also full support of OPML import/export. So if you are already using any RSS reader, it's simple to get started.
Plenary can also be used as a complete offline article downloader app (similar to Read it later apps) and a Podcast player. Other features of the app include searching, filtering, backup/restore on Google drive/Dropbox, YouTube playback support, custom syncing intervals, notifications, multiple theming options etc.
Please try them out and let us know your feedback!
You can disable these annoying prompts by going to https://myaccount.google.com/permissions and disabling "Google Account sign-in prompts". Ideally it should have been user opt in but Google followed dark pattern here.
You can try my app Plenary - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spians.ple... which perfectly suits your needs. It doesn't have ads or tracking and doesn't require an account. Plenary is combination of RSS reader and offline article downloader with built-in support for podcasts. Check it out and let me know if it works for you!
1. Plenary doesn't use Chrome as the browser (it uses Android WebView that uses chrome engine internally). We didn't go with custom tabs as we wanted more control on the interactions with WebView. You can open links externally or within the app (If you have premium, you can open your preferred domain urls externally as the main action).
2. Are you talking about opening article externally as the main action?
3. Sure we will improve the algorithm to find the image and also look into removing the placeholder if image is not present.
4. It would be great if you can elaborate more on "zoom slider for the front page grid". Yes, Plenary is currently not fully optimized for tablet experience. That is one area we need to work more on.
5. Because of the way Plenary is designed, everything it does; from fetching, combining and storing feed data to showing it to the user; is done on your mobile device. Catching duplicate content links is hard to implement in this case because that logic will also have to reside on the user device.
6. Same as point 5. Trend analysis is not possible because everything is done on your device. We don't have any server to store any user data.
Thanks again for your detailed feedback. Really appreciate it.
We've created an RSS feed and offline reader app for android that doesn't show ads/track your activity. The app is a combination of a feature rich RSS reader, minimalist podcast player and an offline article downloader (similar to read it later apps). The app has novel ways to add RSS feeds and has an offline first strategy.
Please try out the app and let us know if you have any questions or what you'd like to see in coming versions!
The reason for these removals is also never given. If you look at those sites now, you'd feel RSS support never existed and nobody used them. So the reason for removal could be anyone's guess. Perhaps RSS icon didn't look good with other social media icons on home page, server serving the RSS feed shut down and no one bothered to check, forgot to add RSS option in new design/refactor or some PM didn't find RSS feed engaging enough and actively killed it.