Google discontinues Chrome's RSS subscription extension

According to the unofficial Google Operating System blog, Google has removed its RSS subscription extension on Chrome from the web store. This one-click subscription extension allowed users to preview feed articles and subsequently subscribe to them. The extension was released in 2010 and it used Google Reader – the Google service that will be gone on July 1. Interestingly, according to this post, Google never introduced native support to feeds. It explained this by saying that since most people were not known to the idea and did not use RSS feeds, an RSS support would suit better at the outset. It adds, "In 5 months, more than 300,000 people installed the extension. More than 1,600 people starred a feature request for implementing RSS detection natively."

Says goodbye to RSS subscription extension!

It was reported only recently that Google has decided 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 Takout over the course of the next four months.

While newer RSS-based services like FlipBoard, Pulse and the search giant’s own Google Currents have turned to using a visually rich medium to display stories, Google Reader pretty much remained the same with its text heavy inbox style ever since it began nearly eight years ago.

Just this morning, we reported that  more than 500,000 former Google Reader loyalists have flocked to adopt the latter’s RSS service. 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.