• Aug 15, 2019

    Secure images for everybody

    There are two ways to connect to the NewsBlur website. The first is http://www.newsblur.com. The second is https://www.newsblur.com. The first is plain text and the second is encrypted. You get to choose which one you want to use.

    Part of the draw of using an encrypted https connection instead of a plain text http connection is that you can protect your privacy. As far as I can tell, there are two reasons for preferring https over http.

    One is that using an encrypted https connection to NewsBlur protects what you read from hackers or a man-in-the-middle changing your data as it comes to you. This could be your internet service provider (ISP) inserting ads or it could be snooping wifi router that you are connected to that injects malware into your content. Some companies have been known to do this and https protects you.

    But the second reason is that your privacy is also protected from more benign, aggregate collections by ISPs and middlemen that sees what you read and sells that data. NewsBlur doesn’t sell any of your data and beginning this week NewsBlur can ensure that nobody other than you and the site you read can either.

    The feature that is launching this week (it actually launched Monday in order for me to ensure that it works well) is a secure image proxy for all images served on NewsBlur. That means that NewsBlur will take any images that isn’t behind an encrypted https connection and proxies it behind NewsBlur’s own secure, encrypted connection.

    You should notice next to no difference. The only difference you may notice is that some images may load faster, since NewsBlur has a thicker pipe to the Internet and can download data faster than your client browser can, which means that your persistent connection to NewsBlur’s servers takes over instead of having to make new connections with the associated overhead to various servers around the net.

    Now you can turn on the SSL setting on the NewsBlur Web and ensure your data stays private.

    And to answer the question of why you wouldn’t wan t to use https — it used to mean serving and loading pages over https gave a slight performance hit, but that’s no longer true. But some people use http because it will load images from both http and https websites, whereas loading NewsBlur via https means that you can only load images via https, as loading an image via http will throw up a Mixed Content Warning. This update addresses that issue and it is my hope that http-only will be phased out.

  • Jul 1, 2019

    NewsBlur iOS v9: full screen, autoscroll, customizable story titles, story change highlighter, and return to last read story

    A whopper of a release with many, many new features!

    • Autoscroll: Read long stories hands-free
    • Full screen: Reading stories without the toolbar for a better experience
    • Longer story titles: New options for longer and shorter story title and content previews in the story titles list
    • Smaller image previews: New option for smaller image previews in the story titles list
    • Show story changes: All stories with edits now show a “Show Changes” button at the top that lets you see the differences
    • Return to last read story: When you return to the app, you will start where you left off
    • Return to last read scroll position: When you return to a story, you will automatically scroll to where you left off

    Take a look at some of the image and story title customizations you can now make:

    There’s also many smaller fixes that improve the polish of the app:

    • If you had a slow connection, some stories would take a while to draw while images were downloaded. Now they show immediately
    • Support for larger iPad Pros
    • Suport for iOS 13
    • Fixes for split mode on iPad
    • Fixes for marking stories as read while scrolling the story titles list
    • Fixes for navigating stories with an external keyboard
    • Fixes for scroll performance on the feed list and the story titles list
    • Fixes for sharing stories accidentally having double titles in emails and messages

    Thanks to David Sinclair for putting together this release. Keep up the great work! And if you have ideas for what you’d like to see in the next NewsBlur iOS release, please, please, please submit them to the forum.

  • Jun 1, 2019

    Updates to the Android app and a new addition to the team

    Today we have a nice update, version 9.0, of the Android app that includes a rewrite of the story management backend as well as fixes for some critical display issues.

    Here’s the full list of changes for version 9.0:

    • Fixes black background for stories while reading with the Light theme.
    • Total rewrite of the backend story management platform. This fixes the oldest issues known in story paging and scroll state. The story rivers should now act like dynamic views instead of static lists.
    • New feature: renaming feeds directly in the app.
    • Improved messaging and display behavior for the original text view.
    • Fixes for the dark theme’s menu color.
    • Many other bug fixes and performance tweaks.

    I’d also like to introduce our newest developer, Caleb Allen.

    Caleb will be working on the Android app. Our Android developer Daniel spent the last 5 years with us working many, many versions of the NewsBlur app. I want to thank Daniel for his years of service and we wish him well on his next adventure. And here’s hoping for many fruitful years with Caleb!

  • Oct 31, 2018

    The NewsBlur iOS app also hits version 8.0

    Fresh off the heels of the Android app hitting version 8.0, today I’d like to announce the latest update to the iOS app. This is a huge release and it’s got a lot of new features packed in it. I also want to welcome David Sinclair back to the team. He’s the builder behind all the incredible features in this release. Really wonderful having you back, David, and thanks for making v8.0 of the best news reader on a phone.

    Here’s what’s new:

    • NEW: Save stories offline
    • NEW: Share stories from other apps into NewsBlur with the new share extension
    • NEW: Scroll vertically between stories (can be turned on while reading a story)
    • NEW: 3D Touch links in stories to preview them
    • NEW: search for sites directly from the feed list
    • Switching themes no longer reloads the story
    • iOS 12 compatibility fixes
    • Upgrading to a premium subscription now handles App Store payment updates
    • Fixed issue where locking the device while playing a video over Airplay would stop the video

    Here’s a preview of what a 3D touch on a link looks like:

    And sharing stories from other apps directly to your blurblog is now easy to do from the share menu.

    Now that David’s back there’s a lot to look forward to.

  • Jul 20, 2018

    The NewsBlur Android app hits version 8.0 with a new Grid view

    Long popular on the NewsBlur web app, the Grid view has now come to the Android app. Have a look for yourself…

    There’s even a wide and narrow grid view for ultimate customization. And the grid view is saved per-folder/feed, so you can change some folders to use the grid view while leaving others in a list view. And gestures work on individual grid tiles, so you can swipe to mark stories as read/unread while in the Grid view.

    Here’s a full list of the changes:

    • The grid view comes to Android. Each feed/folder has its own List view setting
    • Can scroll all the way past the last story (for marking-read while scrolling through story list)
    • Fix for Twitter videos
    • Fix crash for viewing muted feeds
    • Long press links and images without tags
    • Better login screen for very small devices
    • Improved efficiency on thumbnails
    • Story list position retained on rotate
    • Android 8 compatibility fixes
    • Color-blindness-friendly intelligence training

    And for those of you using the Amazon App Store, the NewsBlur Android app has been updated there as well.

  • Apr 17, 2018

    Moving to a better support forum at forum.newsblur.com

    It’s about time NewsBlur had more control of its own support forums. For the past 7 years (to the week!), NewsBlur has been using Get Satisfaction for support, ideas, questions, and praise.

    In that time the forums have hosted 6,959 conversations with 6,432 members. And all of that has been imported into the new support forum at https://forum.newsblur.com.

    Every topic, every post, every like, and every user is still there. The URLs have changed but the search function is alive and well.

    Here’s the story with your account. It’s still there and you can inherit all of your posting history. But to use your account you will have to go through the forgot password flow, as the passwords were not able to be imported.

    Or create a new account. The point of the forum is to post ideas and questions and problems, so if your posting history doesn’t come with you, it’s not a big deal. It’s not like anybody answering the forums looks at your post count and decides whether or not to dive deeper into your question.

    I try to do my best in answering every single support thread. At the rates we’ve seen with nearly 7,000 posts in 7 years, that’s an average of 3 per day. Let’s keep the posts coming!

    And if you’re wondering about why I decided to upgrade, the answer is that the new forum software, Discourse, is open-source and allows me to better integrate the forums into other parts of NewsBlur. I have plans to build out the staff in the coming weeks and part of that includes a better support system.

    Thanks to Get Satisfaction for all the years of service. You and your cupcake avatars will be missed.

  • Dec 11, 2017

    Intelligence training comes to NewsBlur’s Android app

    This is a big deal for Android users. The NewsBlur Android app now fully supports intelligence training and filtering, letting you filter out the stories you don’t want to read while highlighting the stories you do want by letting you filter titles, authors, tags, and the publisher.

    You used to be able to train by tapping on authors and tags right from the story, but that didn’t give you a bird’s eye view of an entire feed. You can now clear / modify old intelligence training without going back to the story that set it. And until now you had to use the web or iOS app to train on titles and the publisher itself. Now you can do it all from all of the apps. Check the FAQ for ideas on how to make use of the intelligence trainer.

    Here’s a list of all the new features in version 7.0 of the Android app:

    • New Intelligence Trainer. You can train feeds and individual stories: titles, authors, tags, and publishers.
    • New Infrequent Site Stories view. It’s configurable and will show up on iOS and the web soon.
    • Titles with intelligence training are now highlighted.
    • You can now switch between light and dark themes from any view.

    This is a huge release and we hope you’ll find that it makes the NewsBlur reading experience that much better.

  • Dec 11, 2017

    NewsBlur for iPhone X

    I’m proud to announce the launch of version 7.0 of the NewsBlur iOS app, complete with iPhone X support. There’s a lot that’s new and improved in this release.

    Also new to the release is that addition of in-app payments for a NewsBlur premium subscription. This was a long time coming. This upgrades the iOS app to match the experience on the web. And because in-app subscriptions are now live, the iOS app will now match the free account restrictions you’ll find on the web. As a reminder, NewsBlur is a paid service with free accounts that act as indefinite trials.

    Here’s a complete list of what’s new:

    • Built for iOS 11 and iPhone X
    • In app purchases allow you to upgrade to a premium subscription from inside the app
    • Drag-and-drop on iPad to share stories and images from NewsBlur
    • New view: Infrequent Site Stories shows stories from feeds that update less than once a day (premium only)
    • Theme manager in every view for quick color changes
    • Adding San Francisco font choice
    • Adding feed list and story list font size controls so you can change size directly from each view
    • Adding in-app Safari with Reader mode option
    • Scroll position is now saved, so when you return to a story you maintain your place
    • New mark as read button on iPad when in landscape or with story titles on bottom
    • Fixing image sizing on all iPhones and iPads
    • Updated many layouts for better future compatibility
    • Fixing unread count badge for users without notifications turned on
    • Fixing duplicate title/URL in Messages sharing (thanks Nicholas R!)
    • Fixing compatibility with Firefox (thanks Joe G!)

    I hope you enjoy the updated iOS app. I have plans to build new features on top of the app next year, when some huge features will make their debut.

  • Dec 11, 2017

    Infrequent Site Stories is the blog reader we need

    Launching today on all three platforms—web, iOS, and Android—is the new Infrequent Site Stories view. This configurable river of news offers a view of stories only from the blogs that publish less often than 1 story per day.

    Most of what you see in your day-to-day feed is news that’s up to the minute and is probably stale within a day. Even 8 hour old news can be a problem. But sometimes what you want is an overview of the news that isn’t exactly news. It’s stories from the blogs who have individual authors, or blogs that publish only a few times a month. And missing out on those stories is a tragedy because it is those blogs that pushed you to invest in an RSS reader in the first place.

    Today I’m happy to introduce a new feature that you won’t find anywhere else. It’s called Infrequent Site Stories and you can find it at the top of your feed list on the web, on iOS, and on Android.

    Infrequent Site Stories is the river that captures stories from those authors who aren’t pulling from the firehose. These are the stories that are more thoughtful and more relevant days, weeks, months, or even years down the line. These stories are not to be missed. And the best thing about these stories is that there are far fewer of them than there are of your normal full river from All Site Stories.

    You can also configure the Infrequent river to be more or less inclusive of content that is more or less frequently published by changing the filter anywhere from 5 to 90 stories per month.

    These options are also available on all three official NewsBlur platforms and will let you perform a filter similar to how Focus mode reduces your number of unreads. It’s great to dip into Infrequent Site Stories and get stories you would ordinarily miss out on.

    Try out the new Infrequent Site Stories feed, available only to premium subscribers. If your experience is anything like mine, it’ll be one of the new must read feeds in your reader.

  • Oct 24, 2017

    Improved Text view story extraction

    The Text view is one of the most popular NewsBlur features. It’s available on all three platforms and gives you the full text of the original story, even in truncated RSS feeds. Up until today, NewsBlur’s implementation of the Text view used Readability’s open source text extractor.

    Starting today, all stories will be run through Postlight Labs’ Mercury Parser. That means that not only will the full text be more likely to correctly pull the entire article, but it will also do a much better job with extracting full size images in stories.

    Take a look:

    A welcome improvement. This new text extractor and parser also does a better job of handling Unicode and Chinese characters. And when it doesn’t extract text as well as the old text extractor, NewsBlur will automatically fallback on the old method.

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