---
title: "Why I won't be switching to Google RSS Reader"
url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2007/6/1/why-i-wont-be-switching-to-google-rss-reader.md"
canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2007/6/1/why-i-wont-be-switching-to-google-rss-reader.html"
published: "2007-06-01T14:33:24"
updated: "2007-06-01T14:33:24"
tags: ["Off Topic", "Other"]
author: "Roy Osherove"
description: "Google Reader is a great RSS reader, in the browser. However, if I try to figure out the ways in which it benefits me than my current reader - Omea , I get quite annoyed with missing functionality in Google Reader: No…"
usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)."
license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# Why I won't be switching to Google RSS Reader

By Roy Osherove June 1, 2007 In [Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic), [Other](https://osherove.com/blog/category/other)

**Historical article** · Originally published June 1, 2007; technical details may be outdated.

[Google Reader](http://reader.google.com/) is a great RSS reader, in the browser. However, if I try to figure out the ways in which it benefits me than my current reader - [Omea](http://www.jetbrains.com/omea/reader/), I get quite annoyed with missing functionality in Google Reader:

- **No Search in google reader??** This is truly weird. If anything, that would have been the killer feature to make me move to the browser. Am I missing something?
- No ability to add comments to a post

Sure, now Google reader uses [Google Gears](https://osherove.com/blog/2007/6/1/gears.google.com/) to save an offline cache of the read items, but how's that better than Omea or any other "smart client" app?

The only differece is that the "read" status on feed items is shared between machines, which for me is not that big a deal since I mostly use just my laptop.

## More in Off Topic

[All posts in Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic)

- Jul 19, 2007

    ### [Can you spot the Phishing Scam?](https://osherove.com/blog/2007/7/19/can-you-spot-the-phishing-scam.html)

- Jul 12, 2007

    ### [iPhone is an Israeli Brand originally](https://osherove.com/blog/2007/7/12/iphone-is-an-israeli-brand-originally.html)

- May 3, 2007

    ### [Pretty amazing demo of 3D sound on your headphones](https://osherove.com/blog/2007/5/3/pretty-amazing-demo-of-3d-sound-on-your-headphones.html)

- Apr 27, 2007

    ### [How I stopped kicking myself and started using Google Apps For Domains](https://osherove.com/blog/2007/4/27/how-i-stopped-kicking-myself-and-started-using-google-apps-f.html)


---

## About the author

**Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery.

### Sites

- [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership.
- [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts.
- [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin.
- [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model.
- [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps.
- [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes).

### Social

- X: https://x.com/royosherove
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/

### Contact

- Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7

### License

Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/