So it looks like Google Reader RSS, widely considered one of the best RSS feed readers, is shutting down as of mid 2013. But that doesn’t mean its users won’t have any way to get their choice of popular RSS feeds. For one thing, users can export their master list of popular RSS feeds into another reader of their choice. And there’s also a Chrome RSS reader available as a free add on for the Google Chrome browser, and it seems to be attracting quite a few new devotees.
It’s actually hard to say which is objectively the best feed reader, but there are numerous options to try out. You may even want to know which is the best iPad or Android RSS reader, although as it turns out most modern readers are formatted to work quite smoothly on mobile devices. Because of this, there probably won’t be much variance between which reader you prefer to use on a laptop or desktop comp, and which will be your favorite for smartphone or tablet use. You may want to give the Google options a try, but if you’d rather steer clear of those, feel free to search around and see what other users consider the best RSS feed reader.
Of course, the whole point of having a reader handy in the first place is to have access to a variety of feeds. So what are the most popular RSS feeds of the moment?
According to the Bloglines compilation of the current most popular RSS feeds, it would seem that entertainment news and reviews slightly trump hard news from sources like CNN and Reuters. The popular RSS feeds list is actually quite heavy on animal and pet content, as well as sports news and entertainment media news. Comic strips and tech news also account for a handful of the most popular RSS feeds. So where “straight up” news once dominated, it seems that people’s tastes in RSS feeds are diversifying and becoming more casual as RSS readers become more widely used and accepted.