Android @lemdro.id packetloss @lemmy.world 1 yr. ago

Google News Alternatives

Hello,

Looking for recommendations for Google News alternatives. I'm getting frustrated with the feed getting populated with sources, articles, or subjects I'm not interested in. Spend more time filtering out the crap I don't care about than actually looking at articles.

I don't mind having suggestions on my feed, but Google's algorithm is way off for me. I'm interested in tech, PC hardware, and video games mostly. But I'm getting recommendations for wrestling, a LOT of politics, and weird "reality tv" show news.

Kinda done with it now.

34 comments

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I'm a big fan of Ground News for general news. Their whole goal is to make the bias of the various news sources more transparent to you the reader.
- Allsides.com also does something like that. Not sure which is ultimately more accurate in their rating though.
  
  https://www.allsides.com/unbiased-balanced-news
- I've been using Ground news a bit for a while, but have really come to rely on it since Rexxit as I had been using various subreddits for news aggregation.
  
  I finally started paying for the basic subscription a few days ago... it's certainly worth 83 cents a month.
  
  Rexxit
  
  At least call it Rexit, damn
  
  Why does everything have to be a subscription. I miss the days of paying for an app once.
- It really is good at labeling bias. What is really interesting is seeing what type of news just isn't even reported by one side.
- That's really neat. I don't know how accurate their ratings are (and it's weird to see the BBC labeled as "government") but it's a cool idea.
It never works. I've indicated that I don't want any royal news for as long as I've had Google news. It still populates my feed with garbage
Not exactly what you're asking, but might be useful.

In 2020, during the pandemic, I decided to reduce my news consumption. My problem wasn't just the quality/subjects, but also the quantity, so I changed my behaviour and the way I consumed news. I went from using apps like Google News to use a mix of RSS feeds, podcasts, and platforms like this one.

There are a few sites that write about subjects I like, so I subscribe to their feed. Sometimes I subscribe to the complete feed, sometimes only to a category's feed. A bit similar to "Google News", but with the sites I want.

Hacker News and Reddit (and now Lemmy) is a good source for technology in general and specific areas (in Reddit/Lemmy's case).

For regular news (politics, occurrences, etc), I subscribe to 2 weekly podcasts and that gives me the main points of that week (and 2 different point of views).

Initially I had subscribed to a weekly newsletter digest as some of news sites here have them, but I ended up with the podcasts as I can listen to them while doing something else.

Apps that displayed news and didn't let me hide them where either removed or replaced. Radio stations also have the habit of having news, so I mostly stream music these days. I also don't watch news on TV.

I check my feeds and HN/Reddit/Lemmy at least once a day, usually in the morning. Podcasts... it's when I have the time.

I was using Feeder for RSS feeds, but I wanted something online/cross-platform, so I use Feedly. For podcasts, I only use it on my phone, so AntennaPod is fine.

I don't need to know everything or need the constant drama. I don't want hot takes on "breaking news", to know what someone some random sports dude said or with whom some celebrity went out with. I also don't want to be always checking the news. It won't work for everyone, but works well for me.
Artifact
Try Hacker News, it's similar to Reddit/Lemmy (upvotes, downvotes, recursive comments), except more focused on tech news and random interesting articles. You can either read it at https://news.ycombinator.com or use a native client like the ones listed here: https://github.com/cheeaun/awesome-hacker-news
I switched recently to Microsoft alternative Microsoft Start and found it better than Google News.
A lot of these suggestions are not really alternatives to Google News, as such. That is, OP is asking for something that does better recommendations of content. You could hypothetically, I guess, use RSS feeds as backends for source material, and expose a user-specific derived RSS feed of recommendations, but recommending content is not really what an RSS reader does.

Something directly analogous to Google News would index sites, build a profile on you, and then recommend content that you want to see.
I like nunti https://www.f-droid.org/packages/com.nunti/
Artifact is an interesting app that learns from your viewing history. It's made by the creators of Instagram, and it can do AI summaries of articles. There's also the ability to have discussions with others, but that can be ignored.
- Artifact is an interesting app that learns from your viewing history.
  
  Oooh....
  
  It’s made by the creators of Instagram
  
  Ah, maybe not then.
  
  But the creators of Instagram before selling to Facebook
I used Feedly before defaulting to reddit as sites slowly collapsed RSS functionally.

Curious to know as well, but most of the time I see a couple sites mentioned that I haven't been impressed with their ability to sift the trade mags and studies I was in it for.
For me, I use RSS (Feeder is my current fave on Android), Techmeme, Memeorandum, Ground News, Artifact, and News as Facts.
You can use a service like Feedly & Inoreader. They both have Android apps and you can use their web app for desktop.

I personally self host FreshRSS & RSS-Bridge via docker and sync with Fluent Reader (Linux), FeedMe (Android), and Read You (Android). Though self hosting isn't for everyone.
I use non-algorithmic RSS feeds nowadays. Used to use Feedly, I've since switched to Read You on Android.

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