If You Like RSS, You'll Love Fraidycat (inputmag.com) 39
J. Fergus, writing for Input: Someone finally did it. We can now follow who we want on our own terms and get that information chronologically. Fraidycat is an app and browser extension that allows just that. Though it launched in November 2019, Fraidycat recently got a massive update, widening its compatibility and adding a dark mode. The open-source tool, brought to you by Kicks Condor, is available for Linux, Mac, and Windows in addition to Mozilla Firefox and Chrome as an extension. Fraidycat definitely pulls from RSS feeds more easily, but it also works on Twitter, Instagram, and SoundCloud. You drop the link to the account you'd like to follow -- from Medium bloggers to Twitch streamers to vision board Pinterest-ers -- and set how frequently you'd like to see their posts. Label it, hit save, and posts will appear as often as you'd like. The recent update notably folds Kickstarter into the mix and collapses Twitter threads for readability.
Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like spyware, do not click (Score:3)
This is about the shadiest write up I've ever seen.
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Well, the source is on github and it's got an MIT-like open source license.
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There's plenty of dubious and dodgy bullshit on github.
source available (Score:2)
At least the source is available and you can order an audit if you can afford to pay a company specializing on those (or perform your own evaluation if you have enough expertise).
Try that with a blob....
Yeah, but who does? (Score:2)
That's about as likely as anyone reading the iTunes license agreement.
Also, wasn't openssl audited? (Or was it openssh?)
Reading it does not mean being competent, and being competent does not mean catching underhanded backdoors. (There was a contest for that sort of thing, by the way, so it is hardly obscure.)
Then again, show of hands: Who here has read the source of the compiler that his kernel was compiled with? Or at least verified that the auditor was actually competent and trustworthy?
How about the IME?
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It you like bait, you'll love to click this!
Counterpoint (Score:5, Interesting)
Thanks for the ad. In response, I encourage all slashdotters to avoid fraidycat, and use Feedly instead.
Re:Counterpoint (Score:5, Informative)
After Google Reader shut down I tried Feedly, and while it works well enough and is an easy go-to recommendation if someone is stuck on wanting a free service, I wasn't a big fan. I ended up landing on Feedbin [feedbin.com] instead, and have been happily paying Ben (the one-man team behind it) annually ever since.
Feedbin is solely funded via subscriptions, so it can protect its user's privacy [feedbin.com] without impacting its bottom line, it has a business model that's sustainable and self-sufficient, and Ben keeps adding new features all the time [feedbin.com]. It's had Twitter, YouTube, and email newsletter support for years (e.g. drop a YouTube channel or playlist link into it and it'll notify you when a new video is published; give a site your Feedbin-generated e-mail address and it'll deliver newsletters there instead), for instance, in addition to standard RSS and JSON Feed support. The interface is customizable, it supports standard OPML imports/exports in case you ever want to leave, it lets you set up powerful rules for filtering content you don't care about, it has stats to help you identify dead feeds, Ben has been super-responsive whenever I've had questions, and did I mention he actually cares about your privacy?
It's nice to know that the service I use to keep up with most of my interests isn't out to harvest everything about me.
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Worth noting, I'm NOT being paid for my endorsement (technically, I'm paying for my endorsement, I suppose, what with subscription fees), despite potentially coming across like a paid shill.
Of course, I also got in during the early days of Feedbin, so I'm locked in at $20/year, which is admittedly a lot more palatable than the current rate.
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Feedly became useless when they stopped actually caching content offline. My whole use case was to have low mobile data usage by reading downloaded articles - with pictures (especially xkcd).
Their app won't even show you the feed lost if you don't have data.
Re: Counterpoint (Score:2)
NewsBlur has been amazing too. I can barely remember Google Reader now to compare, but itâ(TM)s been my go to.
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Unless Ben is a lawbreaking violator of contracts, I do have an idea what he's doing, since his privacy policy precludes him from doing what you suggest.
And no, I doubt they will. I was willing to give the data to Google for free, and they didn't see enough profit in it to keep Google Reader running.
Data collection? (Score:2)
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but I thought people stopped using RSS feeds because
Uh, what? Did you just buy that user id recently? You don't remember what happened? You don't remember why nobody wants to try any new services from google?
connection needed (Score:3)
We can now follow who we want on our own terms and get that information chronologically.
It will only work if my browser (and by extension my computer) is online. So I have to leave my computer running day and night? These are not my terms!
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They have altered the terms (Score:3)
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Obligatory Robot Chicken? [youtube.com]
What the actual fuck is going on with slashdot? (Score:3)
TinyTinyRSS (Score:2)
I have been using TinyTinyRSS since Google Reader went dead. 100% open source, and I run it on a cheap shared hosting account I use for a bunch of things. A cheap LAMP stack and its good to go. No longer at the mercy of apps or extensions getting hijacked or going EOL. Even if TinyTinyRSS dies someone can pick the project up.
I have it setup to run git update on the site via cron so I always have the latest version. I keep their nice mobile app on my phone for easy mobile reading in the morning and use the s
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I use FreshRSS similarly, after I finally got fed up with G2Reader's years-old bugs - some of which were silent failures that I only found after switching!
Fraidycat is desktop-based or browser-extension-based rather than being a web application, and it has some scraping features built in, but it's otherwise similar. It also looks like the only way to get your Fraidycat feeds on your phone is to install the browser extension there.
Re:FreshRSS (Score:2)
Thanks for this! While I had difficulties to set up TinyTiny, you gave me the courage to install FreshRSS, and it works. You turned me a happy man ;-)
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Another TTRSS user. I was on feedly and years ago I read some commentary here on slashdot that convinced me to change, cant remember why exactly.
The same still applies: as soon as I see something that can be better I will use it. But I cant see how fraidyc could be it, most of all it seems to be a mass if you follow too much sites.
If only (Score:2)
If only I had the slightest interest in Twitter, Instagram, SoundCloud, Medium, Twitch, Pinterest, or Kickstarter this might be relevant or useful. But I do not.
I mean, a predigested RSS feed of Kickstarter...really?
Still, if this is your cup of tea then I'm happy for you and rejoice in your new method of media consumption.
Not a format/protocol. HARD PASS. (Score:2)
Not a format, or a protocol...
But an "app" or website.
Yeah, my bash script I cobbled together in a half-drunken late evening, does a better job.
No thanks but no thanks.
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RSS is Resident Set Size. It is quite common in Virtual Memory systems as systems without virtual memory have the entire set of code+data resident at all times the program is running so there is no point. In Virtual Memory systems it is the amount of Virtual Memory that currently is mapped to Real Memory for a given process.
Host your RSS server yourself (Score:2)
Host your own RSS server using Tiny Tiny RSS [tt-rss.org] or Miniflux legacy [github.com].
Both are PHP based.
If you are PHP averse, then consider Miniflux v2 [github.com].
It uses PostgreSQL, which is overkill for such a small application.
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Inoreader (Score:2)
Check out its permission request ... (Score:2)
'nough said.
If You Like RSS (Score:2)
If You Like RSS ...
You'll use it continuously since the 90s because it still works great? I've been following dozens of sites daily via RSS for years, including this one. People keep talking about the death of RSS and I keep waiting for it.
I also highly recommend TinyTiny-RSS [tt-rss.org] which is a great Google Reader like RSS client (even has a built-in plugin for Google Reader keyboard shortcuts) that I've been using since they shutdown Google Reader. Specifically I use the very easy to setup linuxserver.io docker image [github.com].