In Firefox, In Google Reader

A really quick screencast today. I twittered about how frustrating it was to have to take 5 clicks to subscribe to a feed into Google Reader within Firefox. I finally decided to take a few moments to fix the issue and get it down to one click (well, technically two, but who's counting).

View with Quicktime View on iPod or iPhone

Of course, this is by no means the only way to do it. Plenty of people on Twitter recommended plugins and bookmarks that could simplify the process. If you got 'em, link 'em up in the comments.

Published October 20, 2009
Categorized as Browsers
Short URL: https://snook.ca/s/958

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19 Comments · RSS feed
Haarball said on October 20, 2009

You added an iPhone version! Amazing.

Tuomas Tolppi said on October 20, 2009

Wow, that's a great tip. This has been frustrating me too. Thanks for sharing.

Sukebe said on October 20, 2009

Thanks for nice tip! That was really great!

Paul M. Watson said on October 20, 2009

Nice tip. If I were using the Google Reader interface I'd go for it.

Feedly (http://www.feedly.com/) does a good job though. One-click subscribe. But it is a Firefox extension which doesn't suit everyone.

trench said on October 20, 2009

I've been experimenting with feedly as well, but this is still a very impressive tip. Thank you.

twe4ked said on October 20, 2009

I'm using a bookmarklet at the moment and I have been for about the past 6 months, I just wrote up a description of it here: http://s.twe4ked.com/6 - tell me what you think!

Cheers, Odin.

Sebastien Barre said on October 20, 2009

That's interesting, I actually did the reverse, when I found myself annoyed that clicking any RSS link immediately fired up Google's add page, but what I really wanted was to view the source to the XML feed (for some reason - I think I was building some Yahoo Pipes). I went back to Firefox asking me explicitly what service I want to use, because there didn't seem to be an easy way to get that otherwise (view source and all that jazz but that's a hassle).

I suppose that it all depends on how often you add feeds vs. how often you want to view a feed..

Jonathan Snook said on October 20, 2009

@Haarball: with the last few screencasts I've done, I've included an iPhone version.

@Sebastien Barre: Yeah, sometimes I like having access to the feed and sometimes I don't. Even if I enable the feed, I still shouldn't have to have 3 more clicks to get the feed into Google Reader.

twe4ked said on October 20, 2009

@Sebasiten, @Jon: Did you check out my post? It gives you the best of both worlds!

Matthew Oliphant said on October 20, 2009

You're a witch!

Jonathan Snook said on October 20, 2009

@Twe4ked: I just checked out the bookmarklet now and I like it. I especially like that it's a heart. :)

twe4ked said on October 20, 2009

:) Glad you liked it!

Jamie said on October 21, 2009

This is a really good and useful tip, I will definitely try it out. Thanks for sharing.

T-Shirts man said on October 21, 2009

Nice post, I will have to try this out.

MrQwest said on October 27, 2009

Cheers Jon, that's a nice little tip!

Matt Kreiling said on October 28, 2009

If you use Greasemonkey, there is a great script that automatically does it: http://greasefire.userscripts.org/scripts/show/45084

BTW, this website is beautiful.

Barry Kelly said on October 31, 2009

Are you sure you're not violating some patent here? :)

Cookiemonster said on November 05, 2009

I like your screencast, bus isn't it more simpel to use the Safari feed reader? Is use it a while now and it works perfect!

Tejas Sanghavi said on November 13, 2009

Thanks Jonathan, this is great. Seems like I will be using Google Reader more often. I used yours as well as Twe4ked's method for this. Both are cool, I like yours as I don't have to have an additional icon which will not work on pages which don't have feeds

Sorry, comments are closed for this post. If you have any further questions or comments, feel free to send them to me directly.