This is a follow-up from my previous post about the read-it-later app Omnivore, and why its existence and shutdown shows off the good and bad of open-source projects. Diving into the world of self-hosting software isn’t for me yet, which means it’s time to search for a replacement hosted service. After reading a variety of lists and reviews of recommended read-it-later apps, and learning from what others in the Discord found to be useful, I decided that writing down a checklist of what I was looking for in a replacement service would probably be the best way to test the options.

What I needed a replacement read-it-later app to have/ not have.

  • A priority on web browser features/settings (i.e. that its not using the “app-first with a limited web version” approach)
  • A Firefox extension that would let me easily save links/pages.
  • An Android app that reliably saves links from web browsing and other apps e.g. Discord messages.
  • A paid hosted syncing service.
  • A focus on reading text, not on audio.
  • No sponsored content or advertising mixed in with my saved links.

What I would prefer the replacement to have/not have:

  • No AI features (or at least the ability to fully disable and ignore any AI features)
  • Preference for a yearly subscription over a monthly subscription.
  • Payment with money rather than data.
  • Preference for developers using open source software and/or a nonprofit structure.

With the checklist in place, I started trying out some of the recommended alternatives to see which might be the best fit.

Apps/services I tried:

Readwise Reader (free trial)

Reader was already in the “probably not” pile as it aims to be a much larger program than I need. It aspires to be a read-it-later app, a note-taking app, and a full productivity system that integrates with other systems. For me, that would probably lead me to turn leisure reading into work, which would not be a good idea.

While I was impressed at Reader’s polished and coherent design, I did find that its everything-app nature felt like “too much” as a replacement; for me it felt intended to be a system that needed active maintenance rather than a tool. I have nothing against systems (case in point: this blog series!), but I didn’t want to replace something that had been simple with something much more complex.

The dealbreaker for me was that Reader automatically summarised imported articles with their AI “ghostreader”. This meant that when looking at my list of articles/feed items, I wasn’t actually seeing the start of the article as written by the author, but the AI summary instead. Worse, there doesn’t seem to be a way to disable it. The fact I couldn’t turn the AI off instantly sent Reader to the “hell, no” pile. A read-it-later app that wants to “ghostread” things for me is not where I want to be!

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