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I've been a happy user of FeedR for at least 5 years. But unfortunately, its dev stopped development¹, and thus won't add new features or fix issues anymore. So I'm looking for an alternative which comes close to FeedR:

ArticleList ArticleView
Two screenshots of FeedR for visualization :) (source: Google Play)

Requirements

  • allow importing feeds from OPML (e.g. for migration)
  • allow adding RSS feeds manually
  • categories (as visualized by the first screenshot)
  • support for at least RSS and Atom feeds
  • auto-sync w/ configurable interval and the possibility to limit it to "WiFi only"
  • must be still maintained and further developed
  • list view of articles (not just those "fancy tiles with images")
  • must run on Android 5.0+

Nice to Have

  • direct support for Pocket (so sharing includes the page title, not only the URL)
  • possibility to exclude feeds from auto-sync (or even to set individual intervals, while having a global setting this defaults to)
  • possibility to manually sync a single feed (useful when on mobile data)
  • feed search with preview
  • expanding/collapsing categories inline, as shown by the first screenshot above (instead of sliding in/out a panel from the side, as most apps do it today)
  • fetching entire articles incl. images (optional and configurable per-feed with a global default)
  • star favorites (useful e.g. when there's no network connection to "save them to Pocket")
  • dark theme :)

Unneeded but accepted

  • sync with some services (Feedly, ownCloud, whatever)
  • podcast support (no need currently, but I wouldn't object ;)

Unwanted

  • FlurryAnalytics or other intrusive "add-ons" which are not needed for functionality
  • strong "GoogleGlue": if it e.g. insists on checking its license and thus depends on the original GSF², it's of no use to me as my device runs without those.
  • strong glue to a specific service. No issues if it's optional, but if an account is required to use the app, that'd be a no-go.³

Open-Source and availability via F-Droid preferred, but not a must. If it comes to paid candidates, the limit is about 5 bucks and it should have a free trial to test (or your description of it must be really convincing).

Candidates I've found so far (but not yet tested):

  • ownCloud News Reader: available on Play as well as on F-Droid. Unsure whether it fits all my requirement, and also works without its ownCloud counterpart
  • GravityForever: available on Playstore only, for EUR 3.50 with no trial version. Looks quite convincing, but is strongly GoogleGlued (vending.CHECK_LICENSE). So if it relies on that, it's out of the equation.
  • RSS Reader: available on Playstore only. Looks like a good candidate. EUR 1 for the license file after being able to test it for free. Does not mention e.g. Pocket support.
  • Aggregator: Again Playstore only. Small sized, supports categories. No mention of e.g. Pocket support, though.
  • spaRSS: a fork of Flym (see below). Available from Play and F-Droid. Again sounds like a good match. No Pocket support (well, I can live with that), and some other minor "quirks" (5 issues opened on their tracker), but seems acceptable.
  • FeedMe: Playstore only. Supports Pocket, images/full article, has no ads. But it does not even offer importing feeds via OPML, so I uninstalled it straight away.
  • Palabre: Playstore only. Sounds pretty convincing from its features – but contains Admob, MoPub etc. Also the UI seems to be limited to "tiles".
  • Flym: Playstore and F-Droid availability. Like its fork spaRSS (see above), also seems to meet most of my requirements (but no Pocket support mentioned).

These are just some things I've found on my search. I don't ask for a comparison of those, nor do I want to limit your recommendations in any way. It's just to give you some ideas ahead :)

So now, looking forward to your recommendations – thanks in advance!

¹ last release is from 2013; fair enough, Peter made it a free app when stopping development (was paid before)
² Google Services Framework; I'm using microG instead
³ This was a PS as I forgot to mention it. So don't blame answers posted before XMas 2016 to not having considered it :)

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4 Answers 4

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4

There is also RSS Reader Xoonity: Playstore

I'm part of the team that handles this app, but I'll be as objective as possible. The prerequisites are fulfilled with the exception:

  • Auto-sync with "Wifi only": All the sources are refreshed in the screen "Your News" but there is not for the moment parameter "Wifi Only"
  • The notion of collection replaces the categories, the visual management of the collections will evolve very soon

Concerning "Nice to have":

  • There is the functionality "Readability" which allows to download the article, we spent a lot of time on this functionality, that works very well. I use it every day.
  • There is a powerful interface for searching RSS feeds and viewing these feeds
  • Currently no direct support from Pocket, but you can ask
  • "expanding / collapsing categories inline" Currently not present, but the visual management of collections will evolve

Additional features::

  • A feature allows you to search for linked articles, we spent time on this feature, we identify the topics of the articles and look for articles that talk about the same topic. A feature for information watch.
  • The integration of reading aloud, the application can read your news. For example if you are busy, walking or otherwise, you can listen to your news. Voice synthesis has made a lot of progress.
  • There are 3 views available for viewing article lists (Adaptive View, List View, Compact View)

This application evolves a lot with the feedback of users. So do not hesitate to comment or ask questions

And it's free and we intend to stay free, while adding more features.

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  • 1
    +1 & thanks for answering! In fact, I already saw its Playstore page. From its screenshots, it lacks list view – all I can see are "tiles", and I hate that :) I don't want "big pictures with a small headline" in my feed view (pictures are fine and mostly wanted inside articles), I don't like to be limited to 3 articles per page in the overview just because of "tiles" – which is the main reason I didn't mention it. So thanks for explicitly mentioning that is misleading (the last bullet-point of "additional" belongs to "requirements" ;) I'll give it a closer look once collections evolved :)
    – Izzy
    Commented Dec 12, 2016 at 10:55
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    Thanks for your explanation, It allowed me to understand that it missed a screenshot. So I added a screenshot with "list view".
    – Xoonity
    Commented Dec 12, 2016 at 13:29
  • That looks more like it, thanks! Will see to give it a try.
    – Izzy
    Commented Dec 12, 2016 at 13:32
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I've only used it a short time but I recommend "Feeder.co": Website & Playstore

I originally found "Feeder.co" aka "Feeder" as a chrome extension but it looks like they do have an early access android app available.

Requirements (✓=Present, ❌=Missing, ?=Unknown)

  • ✓ allow importing feeds from OPML
  • ✓ allow adding RSS feeds manually
  • ✓ categories (as visualized by the first screenshot)
  • ✓ support for at least RSS and Atom feeds
  • ✓ auto-sync w/ configurable interval and the
    • ❌ possibility to limit it to "WiFi only"
  • ✓ must be still maintained and further developed
  • ✓ list view of articles (not just those "fancy tiles with images")
  • ✓ must run on Android 5.0+

Nice to Have (✓=Present, ❌=Missing, ?=Unknown)

  • ❌ direct support for Pocket (so sharing includes the page title, not only the URL)
  • ❌ possibility to exclude feeds from auto-sync (or even to set individual intervals, while having a global setting this defaults to)
  • ✓ possibility to manually sync a single feed (useful when on mobile data)
  • ❌ feed search with preview
  • ❌ expanding/collapsing categories inline, as shown by the first screenshot above (instead of sliding in/out a panel from the side, as most apps do it today)
  • ? fetching entire articles incl. images (optional and configurable per-feed with a global default)
  • ✓ star favorites (useful e.g. when there's no network connection to "save them to Pocket")
  • ❌ dark theme :)

Unwanted (✓=Present, ❌=Missing, ?=Unknown)

  • ? FlurryAnalytics or other intrusive "add-ons" which are not needed for functionality
  • ? strong "GoogleGlue": if it e.g. insists on checking its license and thus depends on the original GSF², it's of no use to me as my device runs without those.
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3
  • 1
    Thanks, Sean! Maybe I've missed to point that out explicitly in my list of no-gos: The screenshots make it look as if one needs some account somewhere in order to use that app. Is that so? Some of the missing points (e.g. Flurry, Google-Glue) we will see as soon as the app arrives at AppBrain (I've just initialized that). Meanwhile thanks for the detailed answer (+1)!
    – Izzy
    Commented Dec 15, 2016 at 21:11
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    @Izzy I apologize for not noticing the app login sooner, that's what I get for answering questions on my lunch break, sloppy results lol. I got used to the chrome extension which doesn't require an account. I'll send another email to the developer asking about it.
    – Sean
    Commented Dec 15, 2016 at 23:45
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    Thanks, looking forward to that! Btw: On play it says the app is not published yet (maybe that's why Appbrain didn't yet pick it up).
    – Izzy
    Commented Dec 15, 2016 at 23:47
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I am using spaRSS for some years now.

Checking your requirements (✓=Present, ❌=Missing, ?=Unknown):

Requirements

  • ✓ allow importing feeds from OPML (e.g. for migration) and export as well
  • ✓ allow adding RSS feeds manually
  • ✓ categories (as visualized by the first screenshot)
  • ✓ support for at least RSS and Atom feeds
  • ✓ auto-sync w/ configurable interval and the possibility to limit it to "WiFi only" interval from minutes ... day; limiting to WiFi available
  • ✓ must be still maintained and further developed last commit January 2017
  • ✓ list view of articles (not just those "fancy tiles with images")
  • ✓ must run on Android 5.0+

Nice to Have

  • ❌ direct support for Pocket (so sharing includes the page title, not only the URL)
  • ❌ possibility to exclude feeds from auto-sync (or even to set individual intervals, while having a global setting this defaults to) But one can filter individual articles per feed with regular expressions. You may filter out all articles of the specific feeds. issue report
  • ❌ possibility to manually sync a single feed (useful when on mobile data) issue report
  • ✓ feed search with preview
  • ❌ expanding/collapsing categories inline, as shown by the first screenshot above (instead of sliding in/out a panel from the side, as most apps do it today)
  • ✓ fetching entire articles incl. images (optional and configurable per-feed with a global default)
  • ✓ star favorites (useful e.g. when there's no network connection to "save them to Pocket")
  • ✓ dark theme :)

Unneeded but accepted

  • ❌ sync with some services (Feedly, ownCloud, whatever)
  • ❌ podcast support (no need currently, but I wouldn't object ;)

Unwanted

  • ✓ FlurryAnalytics or other intrusive "add-ons" which are not needed for functionality
  • ✓ strong "GoogleGlue": if it e.g. insists on checking its license and thus depends on the original GSF², it's of no use to me as my device runs without those.
  • ✓ strong glue to a specific service. No issues if it's optional, but if an account is required to use the app, that'd be a no-go. no account required

Open-Source (✓) and availability via F-Droid (✓) preferred, but not a must. If it comes to paid candidates, the limit is about 5 bucks (✓ for free; I would pay for it) and it should have a free trial to test (or your description of it must be really convincing).

In addition I would like to highlight the following features:

  • One can specify how long articles should be kept for each feed individually (days, weeks, months, forever). I find this very important for news feeds which publish with high frequency
  • authorization via cookie or HTTP
  • Custom feed title
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3
  • Thanks, looks matching well! But as pointed out in my question, I've already tried that: had a couple of issues, opened them at Github, never got any response. So support is not very convincing. // +1 for your detailed answer. Looking at their build.gradle, it seems like neither any GoogleGlue, nor Flurry or the likes are present (wouldn't have made it into the officieal F-Droid repo otherwise either ;)
    – Izzy
    Commented Mar 23, 2017 at 13:43
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    Thank you for your comment @Izzy. I have merged this information into my answer in order to make it more useful. I did not know that the refresh button does refresh all feeds. Good to know!
    – user5534993
    Commented Mar 23, 2017 at 13:57
  • Thanks – also for linking the issues to their resp. bullet points! And yes, I'm aware I might be able to "filter out all articles of the specific feeds" to "suppress" a feed. But that would mean to still fetch it first, which I want to avoid – apart from other side-effects that might have.
    – Izzy
    Commented Mar 23, 2017 at 17:10
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You don't seem to have tried Inoreader. The only required feature it doesn't have is wifi-only, however you could install AFWall (available on F-Droid, requires root) which will let you control whether any app can connect over mobile data or wifi.

It supports all of your "nice to have" features. You can add feeds manually using the icon in the top right corner on the search screen. It even lets you search for popular feeds and such.

You'll have to import opml from the web version though.

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7
  • Sorry, fail. I don't want tiles and a forced subscription. I want to import my own selection (#1 of the must-have list). Couldn't find that. Instead, I'm presented with a bunch of tiles holding predefined feeds. Fine if it meets my nice-to-haves (I couldn't find Pocket support, though), but that doesn't really help if the must-haves are not covered. According to the Playstore comments, offline usage is quite limited, and it seems the user is really bound to their servers. Uninstalled after 5 minutes of testing, sorry. And no, I don't want an account with some service ;)
    – Izzy
    Commented Dec 28, 2016 at 0:42
  • I told you how. Click the plus next to subscribe and put the feed url in the search. It shows as a tile if it recognizes it but will add the feed you put. It can do pocket via android share. Using their servers is a benefit. That way you don't miss anything while offline. You're unlikely to find anything better.
    – Tanath
    Commented Dec 28, 2016 at 4:08
  • That's for manually adding feeds. But where does it "allow importing feeds from OPML"? I couldn't even find a configuration page. I didn't say it's bad, or downvote your answer – I just wrote it failed me. All I could see was either tiles to select from, or the option to log in to some account.
    – Izzy
    Commented Dec 28, 2016 at 11:52
  • Sorry, I imported from the web version (inoreader.com). That looks to be the only way. Also, on the Android version when adding by url there's an icon above and to the right of search for that.
    – Tanath
    Commented Dec 28, 2016 at 15:23
  • Tanath, I appreciate your help. But InoReader is not for me. Maybe someone else will use it, thanks to your answer.
    – Izzy
    Commented Dec 28, 2016 at 16:22

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