Archives For Feed Reader

For users of Liferea feed reader, new version 1.14.1 and 1.12.10 were released few days ago. All users are urged to upgrade due to an important security fix.

Liferea is a free open-source GTK3 feed reader that brings together all of the content from your favorite subscriptions into a simple interface. It can synchronizes with Reedah, TinyTinyRSS, and Google Reader API.

Just few days ago, it release new point releases for its 1.14 and 1.12 release series with an important security fix.

It’s CVE-2023-1350 Remote code execution on feed enrichment.

If you have enabled “Extract full content from HTML5 and Google AMP” for one or more of your feed subscriptions it is possible for a an attacker to inject a script command that would run any command on your system.

All users are recommended to upgrade to the new release with this bug-fix.

Without the upgrade, user can alternatively disable “Extract full content from HTML5 and Google AMP” for all the feeds via following steps:

  1. Close Liferea
  2. Open ~/.config/liferea/feedlist.opml in an editor
  3. Replace all occurences of html5Extract="true" with an empty string

How to Install Liferea 1.14.1 in Ubuntu:

For most Linux, Liferea is available to install as Flatpak package, that runs in sandbox.

Ubuntu users can also use the unofficial PPA, which so far supports for Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 22.10, Linux Mint 20/21, and their based systems.

1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

Type user password (no asterisk feedback) and hit Enter to continue.

2. Then, install the Liferea package by running command:

sudo apt install liferea

Linux Mint user may have to run sudo apt update first to update cache.

Uninstall:

The PPA also contains some other software packages, so you may remove it immediately after installed Liferea.

To do so, either run the command below in terminal, or remove the source line under “Other Software” tab in Software & Updates tool.

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

To remove the feed reader package, simply run command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove liferea-data liferea

That’s all. Enjoy!

Liferea, Linux Feed Reader, finally announced the new stable 1.14 release series! Here’s how to install it via PPA in Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, and Ubuntu 22.10.

Liferea is a news aggregator that brings together all of the content from your favorite subscriptions into a simple interface for easy organizing and browsing. It features offline reading, HTML 5 support, sync with Google Reader API, Reedah, and TinyTinyRSS.

The new 1.14.0 was released today as a new stable release, after more than 2 years of v1.13 series unstable development.

New Features in Liferea 1.14.0

For the built-in browser, it has finally implemented support for Webkits Intelligent Tracking Protection. Youtube videos from media:video can be embedded now with a click on the video preview picture. And, there’s a new ‘Reader mode’ preference that allows stripping all web content.

The UI now is adaptive, that switches automatically between ‘Normal’ and ‘Wide’ mode when resizing the window width. Though, I personally prefer the old layout a bit more.

Other changes in Liferea 1.14.0 include:

  • New GTK dark theme logic.
  • Make several plugins support gettext
  • Export a feed to XML file
  • Allow converting TinyTinyRSS subscriptions to local subscriptions
  • Add generic Google Reader API support
  • New plugin: ‘add-bookmark-site’ and ‘getfocus’.
  • New search folder rules.
  • New hot keys.
  • Remove support for CDF channel, Atom 0.2/0.3 (aka Pie), blogChannel namespace, photo namespace.

How to Install Liferea 1.14.0 in Ubuntu:

For most Linux, Liferea is available to install as Flatpak package, though NOT updated at the moment of writing.

Ubuntu users can also use the unofficial PPA, which so far supports for Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 22.10, Linux Mint 20/21, and their based systems.

1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

Type user password (no asterisk feedback) and hit Enter to continue.

2. Then, install the Liferea package by running command:

sudo apt install liferea

Linux Mint user may have to run sudo apt update first to update cache.

Uninstall:

The PPA also contains some other software packages, so you may remove it immediately after installed Liferea.

To do so, either run the command below in terminal, or remove the source line under “Other Software” tab in Software & Updates tool.

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

To remove the feed reader package, simply run command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove liferea-data liferea

That’s all. Enjoy!

Liferea finally announced the first release candidate for the next stable release line 1.14. Here’s the new features and Ubuntu PPA packages.

Linux Feed Reader, Liferea in short, is a GTK3 new reader for Linux. It’s in the 1.13 pre-release series for more than 2 years, until released 1.14 RC1 few days ago.

The new release fixed an annoying bug that certain desktop environments or themes may make the pane invisible and hard to restore.

Now Liferea will never allow the panes to be smaller than 5% in height or width regarding to there orientation. If a pane is smaller than 5% height/width it will be set to 30% width or 50% height on startup.

Other changes in Liferea 1.14 rc1 include:

  • Supports gtk-application-prefer-dark-theme based dark mode switching.
  • Add search rule to find items from a given author.
  • Exported OPML feed lists are now UTF-8 encoded for better readability.
  • Render <media:description> field for Youtube feeds
  • Updated default feed sources from HTTP to HTTPS.
  • Add new “podcast” search folder rule.
  • Also add enclosures when saving items to file.

Liferea with GNOME style header bar

How to Install Lifera 1.4 RC1 in Ubuntu:

For Ubuntu based user prefer the classic .deb package, here’s the unofficial PPA contains the new packages for Ubuntu 20.04 and Ubuntu 22.04.

1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command below to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

2. Next, either update the feed reader from an existing release via “Software Updater” or run command below to install it:

sudo apt install liferea

NOTE: Linux Mint user need to first run sudo apt update to refresh package cache manually.

NOTE: Liferea still shows v1.13.9 in about dialog for unknown reason. Unknown if it’s building issue or a software bug, and I’ve report it to the project page.

Uninstall:

For any issue, you may uninstall the PPA repository by running the command below in terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

And remove the Liferea news reader either via your system package manager or by running command below in terminal:

sudo apt remove --autoremove liferea liferea-data

Liferea feed reader and news aggregator released version 1.13.7 a few days ago as the latest development release.

Liferea is a GTK+3 news reader with an embedded web browser. It supports for reading articles offline, force fetch full article text using HTML5 extraction, and subscribing to HTML5 websites that do not even have a feed.

It may also permanently save headlines in news bins, and supports for synchronizing with “TinyTinyRSS”, “TheOldReader”, and “Reedah”.

The 1.13.7 release continues working on the ‘Reader mode’. User now can toggle on/off Reader mode by right-clicking on lower right HTML view area via context menu option. And, it now allows to convert TinyTinyRSS subscriptions to local scriptions.

Other changes in Liferea 1.13.7 include:

  • Support for user-agent string customization and anonymization.
  • Add ‘Always show in Reduced Feed List’ option in news bin properties.
  • Execute feed pipe/filter commands asynchronously.
  • Fix HTML view blanking when following links by left click
  • Fix UI blocking when using command pipes or feed filters
  • Fix truncated content after Youtube embeds
  • Fix wrong (doubled) number of unread items
  • And other fixes, translation and documentation updates.

How to Install Liferea in Ubuntu Linux:

The RSS feed reader is available to install via universal Flatpak package.

Some users stick to the native deb package, so I uploaded it into may personal PPA for Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 21.04, Ubuntu 21.10 and derivatives, e.g., Linux Mint 20. Due to outdated dependency library, Ubuntu 18.04 is not supported in this PPA.

1. Add the Ubuntu PPA:

First, either search for and open terminal from start menu, or simply press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When terminal opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

Type user password (no asterisk feedback) when it asks and hit Enter to continue.

2. Install / Upgrade Liferea:

Since Ubuntu 20.04+ checks package updates automatically while adding PPA, you can now run command to install the feed reader:

sudo apt install liferea

or launch ‘Software Updater’ and upgrade the package from an old release. NOTE: some Ubuntu based systems may require to manually update cache via sudo apt update command first.

How to Remove Liferea and the Ubuntu PPA:

The PPA also contains some other software packages, so you may remove it after installing Liferea, by either running command:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

or using “Software & Updates” utility under “Other Software” tab to manage all third-party repositories.

And to remove Liferea feed reader, use command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove liferea

Gnome Feeds, a free and open-source news reader with a neat user interface, now is available to install via Ubuntu PPA for those prefer the classic apt method.

Gnome Feeds is a GTK+3 application written in Python 3. It features a simple responsive user interface based on Purism’s libhandy library. Feeds can be added via URL address and support importing and exporting large feed collection from and to OPML.

The software has been made into main repositories since Ubuntu 20.10 Groovy. For request, I’ve uploaded the latest packages into the unofficial PPA for Ubuntu 20.04, Linux Mint 20, and Ubuntu 20.10, with Ubuntu 18.04 excluded as libhandy requires at least GTK 3.24.

NOTE: It’s recommended to install the official Flatpak package, while the PPA offers unofficial .deb binary package for choice.

1.) Open terminal from your system application launcher, then run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/gfeeds

Type user password (no asterisk feedback) for sudo prompts and hit Enter to continue.

2.) While adding PPA will automatically refresh the system package cache, you can then install the feed reader via command:

sudo apt install gnome-feeds

Once installed, launch it from system application launcher and enjoy!

Uninstall Gnome Feeds:

To remove the feed reader, simply run command in terminal:

sudo apt remove --autoremove gnome-feeds

And remove the PPA either using Software & Updates utility under Other Software tab, or run command:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/gfeeds