Hey, just so you know ... this post is now about 12 years and 1 month old. Please keep that in mind as it very well may contain broken links and/or outdated information.

Why does Google keep killing the stuff I actually use? First iGoogle and now last week they announced they will be shutting down Google Reader on July 1st.

I immediately went on a quest to find a decent replacement. After trying out a few alternatives like The Old Reader and NewsBlur, I got a recommendation from a friend to try Feedly. I wasn’t the only one making the switch as the site supposedly gained 500,000 new users in the days after the Google announcement.

It’s been a week and I have to say I like Feedly the best out of the others I tried. It’ll take a little while longer to completely adjust my Google Reader usage habits to Feedly, but at least the initial setup was pretty easy as Feedly uses Google Reader in the background (they claim to have a backup plan in place (called Normandy) to switch to their own engine once Reader is shut down). Check out the comparison screenshots in the gallery at the end of this post to see my Feedly in action. It even has a free iOS companion app (I don’t normally do a lot of RSS reading on my mobile device, but it’s nice to have just in case).