Bad news for those who get updates through RSS feeds: FeedlyThe world’s largest independent RSS reader, has been experiencing technical issues for over a week and paying users are upset that the web app has been “unusably slow.” Some users also reported that the company ignored their support requests. Uh-oh.
Feedly, the heir to the market ceded by Google when closed Google Reader in 2013 is today among the most successful RSS news readers worldwide with 15 million users, according to its website. That makes it larger than competitive products like web-based Inoreader, as well as several desktop applications like NetNewsWire, Reeder, and others.
And yet, the app is experiencing a number of in progress affairs that are affecting both users and paying subscribers. The most critical issue is a significant slowdown in their web application, which has made browsing feeds quickly and efficiently very frustrating. Reddit users reported that the app runs “extremely” slow, making it “unusable.”
Additionally, users said that the company’s iOS applicationeven on iOS 27 beta, it hasn’t worked, and the classic version of the Feedly mobile app (preferred by a small subset of customers) was closed without prior notice weeks ago.
As most consumers now keep up to date with the news through dedicated apps such as Apple News, browsing the web and feeds such as Google News, and through social media posting, the market for RSS readers has always been relatively small. However, Feedly has been working to shift its focus toward AI, offering businesses a way to track emerging threats and stay up to date with personalized intelligence through its app.
With the latest numbers, the question arises as to whether Feedly is still focused on its core RSS customers amid its pivot to AI, which is the product the company is now advertising. through your home page.
TechCrunch reached out to Feedly for an update on these issues, as several customers on Reddit He said his requests for technical support had been ignored.
In response, Feedly CEO Edwin Khodabakchian assured TechCrunch that RSS remained a focus.
“Despite the shift toward cyber threat intelligence, fixing basic RSS functionality remains a priority because our CTI community uses the news reading capability,” he said. “Our goal has been to keep Feedly News Reader as fast and streamlined as possible.”
Additionally, the CEO said the company was aware of issues with its web app, which were attributed to a bug, and said the front-end team had been testing a fix. The team currently believes the issue was related to using “Mark as Read” on accounts with many folders, and a fix for it was released on Friday. The company is still confirming whether this has resolved the issue for all users.
Khodabakchian also confirmed that the Feedly Classic app was “removed two weeks ago because it “no longer met some iOS and Android requirements,” although it had been removed from the App Store long before that. At the time, the app had only a few hundred active users, he noted. The team did not notify those existing users before its final shutdown.
Furthermore, Khodabakchian said he was not aware of iOS app problemsthat prevent the app from loading, but said Feedly would investigate. He also promised that the issue would be fixed quickly and noted that the company is still actively investing in its main app for iOS and Android.
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