Chrome's RSS subscription extension resurfaces

A couple of days ago, it was reported that the RSS subscription extension for Chrome had been discontinued. The news caused some more disappointment to users, as it came close on the heels of Google's announcement of the imminent closure of its Reader service. Now, though, the extension has resurfaced. The author of the RSS Subscription Extension (from Google) confirmed in a post that the extension had been "removed by mistake" and that it is back up on the webstore. However, this time he has omitted the Google Reader option for new readers. He explains, "It was not _tied_ to Google Reader, per se, since you choose which feed reader to use -- but I've now removed the Google Reader option for new users to prevent them from getting hooked on Reader and then be disappointed in a few months time."

RSS Subscription Extension resurfaced

The extension enables one-click subscription to the toolbar. Once installed, it auto-detects RSS feeds on a particular page that a user is on, and displays an RSS icon. By clicking  on that, users can preview the feeds and subscribe to it. The two feed readers that are included in the extension are Bloglines and My Yahoo; users can add any other web-based feed reader of their choice – except Google Reader and iGoogle.

Google recently decided to show the door to its aggregation service Google Reader much to the dismay of the Internet. Come July 1, users will no longer be able to use Google’s much loved RSS service. Google Reader allows users to keep a tab on content from their favourite blogs and news websites in one place, which made it look almost like an inbox. The service was a hit with compulsive news junkies who used the service dedicatedly.

"We launched Google Reader in 2005, in an effort to make it easy for people to discover and keep tabs on their favourite websites. While the product has a loyal following, over the years, usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader," Urs Hölzle, Google’s Senior Vice President of Technological Infrastructure, wrote in a blog post.

Google has announced that before the service bids its last goodbye in July, users and developers who are interested in RSS alternatives can export their data including subscriptions using Google Takeout over the course of the next four months.

With Google pulling the plug on its aggregation service, users are searching for alternate services even as other RSS readers are going full-steam ahead with trying to attract them.

Feedly announced that within 48 hours of Google announcing its plans to kill off Google Reader, 500,000 former users had joined Feedly. The makers of the service said that they had been anticipating Google’s move to retire Google Reader and they had been working on a project called Normandy, which is a Feedly clone of Google Reader API – running on Google App Engine. “When Google Reader shuts down, feedly will seamlessly transition to the Normandy back end. So if you are a Google Reader user and using feedly, you are covered: the transition will be seamless,” they wrote.