Rad Reader

a simple RSS reader for your computer

• Standard: Loads Atom and RSS feeds, follows XDG for storing files
• Calm: Stay in the loop with favs without stressful inbox numbers
• Resilient: Handles broken feeds, offline-aware behaviour
• Lifetime license: Buy once, keep forever
• Try before buy: Uncertain if the application will run on your system?  Want to give things a good test before forking out hard cash? Try the demo!
• No lock in: Every time you add a new feed all subscriptions are exported to a local OPML file, an RSS standard for bundling feeds
• Import feeds: Import feeds from another reader via OPML
• User customizable: 10+ themes, all customizable. Create your own to make the reader yrs and  tweak themes with the app running to see changes immediately
• Wide compatibility: Handles non-standard time formats to ensure best compatibility with feeds-in-the-wild
• No metrics, no tracking, no accounts: Just a program and some files on the local disk—never more, never less
• Feed detection: Let Rad Reader search a site for valid feeds when hard to find
• Electron-free: Uses local libraries to provide a small binary footprint, no bundling of entire browsers here
• Cross-platform: Tested and confirmed to work on Debian 11, Ubuntu 22.04,  macOS 14, and Windows 10

Rad Reader lets you follow the sites you dig. It's like a pokedex for personal websites, and designed to surface the latest posts for you to view rather than juggle an ever-increasing inbox. Keep up to date when new stuff hits the ground and read at your leisure using your fav browser.

Demo

Download the demo to kick the tyres before taking the small leap and buying the program. The demo doesn't save feeds and only allows loading a limited amount of feeds.

Inspiration

A spiritual successor to Kicks Condor's Fraidycat, the choice to develop something new came from Fraidycat's lack of maintenance and critical bugs hindering daily use.

Rad Reader has a particular focus on being able to handle broken feeds, adding multiple ways for users to sift out and repair the damage of time to followed feeds.

Open Source Criteria

Open source is broken and developers working full-time in the open have a hard time making ends meet compared to employed equivalents.

Taking a step towards one possible solution for open source precarity, Rad Reader will be 100% open sourced on reaching 350 purchases.

Cross-platform Support

Tested and confirmed to work on Debian 11, Ubuntu 22.04, macOS 14, and Windows 10. Developed on Manjaro Linux.