Google Reader was probably the best invention by Google (much better than Google Glass, and in my mind also better than the search engine which turned billions of people into lazy students without proper research skills). I used it almost every day. I had subscribed to blogs, newspapers, podcasts. All news streams were organized in one page with intuitive design and easy handling.

But a few months ago Google announced that it would kill off Google Reader as of 1 July 2013, apparently because it didn’t make any money with it (which is a fair argument for a private company), but maybe because they were too busy passing on all of your e-mails to the NSA.

I was shocked. How could I get all my different podcast subscriptions into one page? How could I follow all my favourite blogs and magazines on one page? How could I sync what I had read on my computer with what I had read on my tablet? Would I lose all of my RSS feeds which I had collected over the years?

Luckily, there are alternatives. I checked out a few, and tried The Old Reader and Feedly. I wanted to test both of them for a few days to see which one I would like more, but Feedly already won after a few hours. In fact, it is not only a substitute for Google Reader but it is much nicer, has plenty more options, works faster and without any problems when downloading podcasts and is much more beautifully designed. Except for the search function, there is nothing to be missed. Had I bothered to try out different RSS readers earlier, I probably would have used Feedly all along.

The lesson: Even if there are things which you like and think are indispensable, don’t worry if you lose them. Chances are you’ll find something better. The same probably applies to people.

By the way, Google is still advertising the service it will shut down in two weeks. What a silly company.