With these good feed reading tools, why should we look at specialized RSS extensions (for Chrome)? Maybe, just for the one-click accessibility they bring. Browser extensions like the one we feature on our Best Chrome Extensions page fulfill all our basic browsing needs and then some more. Reading the feeds we subscribe to is a pretty basic day-to-day activity, and you can bet there are enough Chrome extensions for that. Like these six.
RSS Subscription Extension (by Google)
The Chrome extension developed by Google auto-detects RSS feeds on a web page. The extension makes up for Chrome’s lack of RSS support. It displays an RSS icon in the Omnibox which you can click to subscribe to the feed. You have the option of two feed readers – Bloglines and My Yahoo, with the third option of adding any online feed reader of your choice to the list. For any other feed reader apart from the two predefined in the dropdown, you will need to copy the URL from the respective feed reader’s website. For Feedly users, the URL would be – http://www.feedly.com/home#subscription/feed/%s
Points of Note:
- It saves you the bother of hunting for RSS feeds.
- Download a forked extension that gives you predefined options for Feedly, NewsBlur, and The Old Reader.
Foxish live RSS
Let’s admit it; there are some things that Firefox does better than Chrome. Handling feed subscriptions is one of them. With Live Bookmarks, you can easily subscribe to and be up to date with your favorite websites. Chrome doesn’t have native RSS handling capabilities, so we look towards the Web Store for replacements. The Foxish live RSS extension replicates Firefox’s functionality by auto-detecting and syncing RSS feeds with bookmark folders at configured intervals. I won’t get into the nitty-gritty here as Justin showed us how to add Firefox-Style RSS feeds with Foxish. The extension sets up folders for individual website under Chrome’s bookmarks, and populates them with the maximum feed items you specify in the Options.
Points of Note:
- Foxish live RSS is customizable. You can set the parent folders, the poll interval, and the maximum feed items to include in the folders.
- Import/export of feeds from other RSS readers using OPML.
Slick RSS
On the face of it, Slick RSS is a simple in-browser feed reader sans any frills. But go under the hood and it gives you quite a few customization options without betraying its simplicity. You can import and export OPML files. Slick RSS has in place some feed display options like the choice between summaries or full-content; viewing embedded videos; and loading links in the background. You can set the maximum items you want to display per feed and set the options which allow you to mark what’s read or unread. I found the refresh speed to be slightly slow, but that could be my connection too.
Points of Note:
- Slick RSS has an option that allows for marking an item to be read later.
- The Slick RSS: Feed Finder extension is an optional install for auto-detecting RSS and atom feeds on web pages.
RSS Feed Reader
RSS Feed Reader is a simple and elegant solution for reading RSS and Atom feeds in the browser. It is designed to give you an overview of your RSS account and track your read and unread counts. It syncs with Google Reader but that’s not going to matter. You can directly add your RSS/Atom feeds through the interface and also import your OPML file. Feed Reader helps you to easily subscribe to feeds from any site by clicking on the browser icon. A range of feed customization options are available – choose how many posts to display or change the title of the feeds. You can rearrange your feeds into distinct folders by dragging and dropping them right from within the browser.
Points of Note:
- Change the theme by choosing between – Dark, Mint or Light.
- Feed update status notifications can be enabled for select feeds.
RSS Social Analyzer
If you are into SEO or are a web developer, then RSS Social Analyzer is a Chrome extension that’s just the right fit for you. It is a smart analytical tool that gives you the social sharing metrics of any website with a RSS feed to its name. After installing the extension, it will auto-detect the RSS feed. With a click, it redirects you to a web tool that’s essentially a social analyzer using Linkscape’s API. Social shares are broken down by networks as you can see in the screenshots.
Points of Note:
- The ten most recent posts are analyzed and presented according to their social shares.
- The extension is a shortcut to the analyzing website, but it speeds up the process and helps to auto-detect RSS feeds.
Revolver RSS
As the name suggests, Revolver RSS takes a single RSS feed of any website and automatically rotates the pages that fall under the particular feed. It is slightly limiting because it works with a single RSS feed. On the other hand it can be useful if you want to set up an unattended display of “revolving” web pages for a single website.
Points of Note:
- Go into the options to set the full RSS feed URL for a website.
- You can set the interval between the pages and the maximum pages to display.
The usual suspects like Feedly missing? Well, they have been comprehensively covered before and I am betting as a RSS junkie, you probably are already on it. If you are starting to miss Google Reader, you can use the Feedly Reader extension to turn Feedly into a Google Reader clone. With the help of these extensions and so many other RSS and Atom tools, it is time to bid adieu to Google Reader with a comforting thought. As we have seen, these browser extensions not only let us read our RSS and Atom feeds but also interact with them in other ways.
Is there any super extension that’s missing from this list? I would also be interested to know about your current choice for a feed reader. Drop in and comment.
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