SimpleReader — Local RSS Reader

Privacy-focused, local-first RSS reader. No account required.

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Features

• Reads RSS 2.0, Atom, and RSS 1.0 (RDF) feeds
• All data stored locally in Chrome — nothing leaves your browser
• Cross-device sync via Chrome's built-in Sync (no account needed beyond your Google account)
• OPML import and export — bring your existing subscriptions
• Dark mode and font-size settings
• Full-text search across all loaded articles
• Keyboard navigation (j/k or arrow keys, Enter to expand)
• Starred/pinned feeds float to the top of the sidebar
• Efficient conditional HTTP fetching (ETag / Last-Modified)

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Installation

Chrome Web Store

Install directly from the Chrome Web Store.

Load from source

1. Clone this repo and install dependencies:

   cd extension
   npm install
   npm run build

2. Open chrome://extensions in Chrome and enable Developer Mode
3. Click "Load unpacked" and select the extension/dist/ folder

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Starter Feeds

Not sure what to subscribe to? HN Popular Blogs 2025 is a curated OPML of 95 tech blogs that appeared most on Hacker News. Download the raw OPML and import it via Settings → Import OPML.

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Privacy

SimpleReader does not collect, transmit, or sell any personal data. All articles and subscriptions live in your browser's local storage. See the full Privacy Policy.

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Permissions

Permission	Reason
storage + unlimitedStorage	Store subscriptions, articles, and settings locally
alarms	Periodic background feed refresh (every 30 minutes by default)
host_permissions: *://*/*	Fetch RSS feeds from any domain the user subscribes to

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Development

All commands run from the extension/ directory:

npm run dev      # Vite dev server — hot reload for popup/dashboard UI
npm run build    # Production build to extension/dist/
npm run lint     # ESLint

Note: The background service worker does not hot-reload. After changes to src/background/, run npm run build and reload the extension in Chrome.

Architecture overview

• Popup (src/App.jsx) — single "Open Reader" button that opens the dashboard tab
• Dashboard (src/dashboard/Dashboard.jsx) — sidebar feed list, article list, settings modal
• Background worker (src/background/index.js) — all feed fetching and storage writes; updates the badge with the unread count
• Storage — chrome.storage.sync for settings/subscriptions, chrome.storage.local for articles
• Feed parsing — fast-xml-parser handles RSS 2.0, Atom, RSS 1.0 (RDF)
• Content safety — HTML from feeds sanitized with DOMPurify before rendering

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License

MIT — see LICENSE