FeedLooks – An Alternative to Google Reader

Google Reader is the most popular service for consuming web content via RSS feeds but are there any good alternatives? This dmoz page lists around thirty web-based alternatives to Google Reader but if you dig a little deeper, you’ll realize that most services have either closed shop or have been abandoned by the developers.

MyYahoo! and Netvibes are alive and functional but they aren’t meant for reading more than a couple of feeds. Bloglines is probably the only decent alternative to Google Reader but they are closing down as well in the coming weeks.



Artur Adib recently sent me a note about his not-so-young online RSS reader service called FeedLooks that may appeal to users who, for some reason, aren’t able to use Google Reader or are looking for alternatives.

FeedLooks offers a plain-text style reader where you can add feeds either manually or import them in bulk from your existing feed reader.

There are some nice features here. For example, all the stories have an “Interest meter” icon that how popular that story is among the other users of FeedLooks (see the next screenshot).

The service also make it easy for you to filter stories that have been published in the past ‘n’ days so you don’t feel overwhelmed with the volume of ‘unread’ stories if you are checking after a long gap.



FeedLooks is minimal and beautiful but is not a replacement for your Google Reader – there’s no mobile version, it doesn’t support keyboard shortcuts and you only get to see short snippets of the story inside the reader.

However, when all the big players have left this space, Artur’s efforts are worth appreciating. And you can give his service a try even without creating an account.

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