Brief: Extensively use RSS feeds to stay updated with your favorite websites? Take a look at the best feed reader applications for Linux.
RSS feeds were once most widely used, to collect news and articles from different sources at one place. It is often perceived that RSS usage is in decline. However, there are still people (like me) who believe in opening an application that accumulates all the website’s articles at one place, which they can read later even when they are not connected to the internet.
Feed Readers makes it easier by collecting all the published items on a website for anytime access. You don’t need to open several browser tabs to go to your favorite websites, and bookmarking the one you liked.
In this article, I’ll share some of my favorite feed reader applications for Linux desktop.
Best Feed Readers for Linux
As usual, Linux has multiple choices for feed readers and in this article, we have compiled the 5 good feed readers applications for you. The list is no particular order.
1. Akregator – Feed Reader
Akregator is a KDE product which is easy to use and powerful enough to provide latest updates from news sites, blogs and RSS/Atom enabled websites.
It comes with an internal browser for news reading and updated the feed in real time.
Features
- You can add a website’s feed using “Ädd Feed” options and define an interval to refresh and update subscribe feeds.
- It can store and archive contents – the setting of which can be defined on a global level or on individual feeds.
- Features option to import subscribed feeds from another browser or a past back up.
- Notifies you of the unread feeds.
How to install Akregator
If you are running KDE desktop, most probably Akregator is already installed on your system. If not, you can use the below command for Debian based systems.
sudo apt install akregatorOnce installed, you can directly add a website by clicking on Feed menu and then Add feed and giving the website name. This is how It’s FOSS feed looks like when added.
2. QuiteRSS
QuiteRSS is another free and open source RSS/Atom news feed reader with lots of features. There are additional features like proxy integration, adblocker, integrated browser, and system tray integration. It’s easier to update feeds by setting up a timer to refresh.
Features
- Automatic feed updation on either start up or using a timer option.
- Searching feed URL using website address and categorizing them in new, unread, starred and deleted section.
- Embedded browser so that you don’t leave the app.
- Hiding images, if you are only interested in text.
- Adblocker and better system tray integration.
- Multiple language support.
How to install QuiteRSS
You can install it from the QuiteRSS ppa.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:quiterss/quiterss
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install quiterss
3. Liferea
Linux Feed Reader aka Liferea is probably the most used feed aggregator on Linux platform. It is fast and easy to use and supports RSS / Atom feeds. It has support for podcasts and there is an option for adding custom scripts which can run depending upon your actions.
There’s a browser integration while you still have the options to open an item in a separate browser.
Features
- Liferea can download and save feeds from your favorite website to read offline.
- It can be synced with other RSS feed readers, making a transition easier.
- Support for Podcasts.
- Support for search folders, which allows users to save searches.
How to install Liferea
Liferea is available in the official repository for almost all the distributions. Ubuntu-based users can install it by using below command:
sudo apt-get install liferea
4. FeedReader
FeedReader is a simple and elegant RSS desktop client for your web-based RSS accounts. It can work with Feedbin, Feedly, FreshRSS, Local RSS among others and has options to send it over mail, tweet about it etc.
Features
- There are multiple themes for formatting.
- You can customize it according to your preferences.
- Supports notifications and podcasts.
- Fast searches and various filters are present, along with several keyboard shortcuts to make your reading experience better.
How to install FeedReader
FeedReader is available as a Flatpak for almost every Linux distribution.
flatpak install http://feedreader.xarbit.net/feedreader-repo/feedreader.flatpakrefIt is also available in Fedora repository:
sudo dnf install feedreaderAnd, in Arch User Repository.
yaourt -S feedreader
5. Newsbeuter: RSS feed in terminal
Newsbeuter is an open source feed reader for terminal lovers. There is an option to add and delete an RSS feed and to get the content on the terminal itself. Newsbeuter is loved by people who spend more time on the terminal and want their feed to be clutter free from images and ads.
How to install Newsbeuter
sudo apt-get install newsbeuterOnce installation completes, you can launch it by using below command
newsbeuterTo add a feed in your list, edit the urls file and add the RSS feed.
vi ~/.newsbeuter/urls
>> http://feeds.feedburner.com/itsfossTo read the feeds, launch newsbeuter and it will display all the posts.
You can get the useful commands at the bottom of the terminal which can help you in using newsbeuter. You can read this manual page for detailed information.
Final Words
To me, feed readers are still relevant, especially when you follow multiple websites and blogs. The offline access to your favorite website and blog’s content with options to archive and search is the biggest advantage of using a feed reader.
Do you use a feed reader on your Linux system? If yes, tell us your favorite one in the comments.
..and of course, for the emacs fans like myself, there is the elfeed package (on MELPA and https://github.com/skeeto/elfeed)
Liferea? You better say pass! It’s the only one I tried from this list, and it sucks! Who the heck is designing an application with only one feature: a list of items, but without the commonsense option of selecting more than one? For instance, I have some feeds which have at least 100 articles in them, but to clean them up I have two options: either delete the articles all at once, or delete them one by one (this second option is one of the most annoying things I found in a software). So in a long term I have to let all the read articles there, taking space and making reading them harder, just because here and there there is an article I like to keep.
If there would have been a feed reader in Windows 3.1, I bet it would be much better than this “most used feed aggregator on Linux platform”. Oh!
LOL! LEARN HOW TO USE SOMETHING BEFORE YOU CALL IT CRAP! SET YOUR FEED COUNT FOR THAT PARTICULAR FEED ALLOWANCE LOWER, CLOWN!
First: use lowercase, if you have something informative to say, otherwise you look like a moron.
Second: did I say something negative about the number of articles in a feed? Actually I like to have as many articles in a feed as possible. Read again what I said, or shut your stupid mouth!
Third: crap you say? OK, if you say so… Liferea is crap!
Well, why do you even bother cleaning them up in first place? It does it automatically for you, based on the first global setting “Default number of items per feed to save”. I believe you also can set it up by feed but I’m not sure.
Liferea being a (at least) 15 years old popular open source project still maintained, its author certainely got that kind of feedback already. If he didn’t implement this “feature”, chances are big that he judged it unecessary and counter productive.
Use a term to filter out the articles you wish to remove. When done, select all articles and remove all of them at once, to your hearts content.
But if you only want the manually click each article manually to be included in your removal list, then yes the interface isn’t making much sense.
However, filtering results first, then remove the results at once is more efficient when wanting to remove lots of articles…like me, who sometimes misses a week and has dig through 5000 unread articles or more.
In that light, learn properly about the tool you are using, instead of projecting your own views on how everything should work and misguidedly call software crap.
I just tried Akregator and Liferea. Akregator worked better on LM 19.1. The save-as option to download a podcast worked as expected. It was not easy to find on Liferea.
I prefer QuiteRSS and Liferea. The second I love especially for the ability to add custom scripts – the first I discovered recently and so far am very pleased about, even more so as it is in Qt5, so it integrates very nicely with my LXQt DE.
Two corrections though on the section about FeedReader:
1: I don’t think many people use Yaourt any more (see also https://itsfoss.com/best-aur-helpers/), and even though my personal preference for installing from the AUR is Yay it seems unnecessary to me that an article like this should mention a preference – you could of course mention the various alternatives, but it is hardly necessary; Arch users will know how to install from the AUR.
2: FeedReader has moved to the Community repository, so, unless one wants to install the git version, the proper command would be “pacman -S feedreader” (although of course yay -S and probably ‘any other aur helper’ -S will do the exact same thing).
Aye for yay, nay for yaourt. Shame to see even in 2019 that the outdated, insecure software is still being recommended. Actually, Itfoss should do an article about yay.