Google News
Shares rank 6 of 9 news aggregators by recommenders
Recommended for its story clustering and useful RSS feed, and for being simple to use daily. Critics say Google has neglected it, with tabloid-style results and paywalled sources.
Recommended for its story clustering and useful RSS feed, and for being simple to use daily. Critics say Google has neglected it, with tabloid-style results and paywalled sources.
33 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 8
- criticize it
- 25
- approval share
- 24%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 8 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Useful clustering and RSS feed
“Effective clustering is the really interesting technology Google News has had for a long time.”
Comment from 11 Feb 2026 in “NetNewsWire Turns 23” “Google News still has a very robust and useful RSS feed.”
Comment from 20 Oct 2026 in “NixOS is making me less afraid” Works well for daily reading
“I use google news, the website and mobile app, daily and don't have any complaints.”
Comment from 1 Aug 2026 in “Google News is just Forrest Gump's shrimp boat now” “Google News seems better but my news reading is not a main activity”
Comment from 22 Jul 2026 in “Back to Kagi”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Neglected by Google, decaying over time
“Google abandons a piece of software into decaying crap but their scale and 'free'-ness is so large”
Comment from 1 Aug 2026 in “Google News is just Forrest Gump's shrimp boat now” “Google is distracted by AI and letting Google News, now un-captained, run into the pier.”
Comment from 1 Aug 2026 in “Google News is just Forrest Gump's shrimp boat now” “Google started killing more services than it was announcing (Wave, News, +, etc)”
Comment from 9 Mar 2026 in “The Death of Social Media Is the Renaissance of RSS” - Comment from 1 Aug 2026 in “Google News is just Forrest Gump's shrimp boat now”
Ignores date and search settings
“the search tool no longer respects your settings”
Comment from 1 Aug 2026 in “Google News is just Forrest Gump's shrimp boat now” “it just ignores that setting and gives me news published weeks, months or years in the past.”
Comment from 1 Aug 2026 in “Google News is just Forrest Gump's shrimp boat now” “Google News doesn't have arbitrary historical date search, only previous N.”
Comment from 1 Aug 2026 in “Google News is just Forrest Gump's shrimp boat now” Curated or scrubbed stories
“stories that went against the narrative were scrubbed from search results, sometimes within the same day”
Comment from 1 Aug 2026 in “Google News is just Forrest Gump's shrimp boat now” “I got the ick from Google News and couldn’t find a news app that just showed my sources, algorithm-free.”
Comment from 19 Feb 2026 in “I thought no one cared about RSS. Turns out people do. Just not RSS itself” “I don't want anyone curating the current events or long-form I read.”
Comment from 6 Feb 2026 in “I Now Assume That All Ads on Apple News Are Scams” Tabloid-style and nonsense results
“All I've ever seen is just the same tabloid-style articles any time I've searched it”
Comment from 1 Aug 2026 in “Google News is just Forrest Gump's shrimp boat now” “in my Google news feed with the constant barrage of nonsense”
Comment from 19 Jan 2026 in “Dead Internet Theory”
Other news aggregators people recommend
The four most recommended other news aggregators, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ground News | 18 | 23 | 44% | 10 | — | — |
| Digg | 17 | 43 | 28% | 11 | — | — |
| Kagi News | 14 | 4 | 78% | 8 | — | Approved |
| techposts.eu | 11 | 4 | 73% | 2 | — | — |
| Google NewsThis page | 8 | 25 | 24% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
All 34 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Google News still has a very robust and useful RSS feed.”
“They've been doing the same in Google News.”
“I was greeted by cookie dialog.”
“Ever since google news went to shit”
“my Google News blocklist is no better”
“my Google News blocklist is no better, easily runing 2000+ sources deep”
“'Google Snooooooze' amiright? crickets”
“I use google news, the website and mobile app, daily and don't have any complaints.”
“the search tool no longer respects your settings”
“Google News doesn't have arbitrary historical date search, only previous N.”
“Google abandons a piece of software into decaying crap but their scale and 'free'-ness is so large”
“it just ignores that setting and gives me news published weeks, months or years in the past.”
“the trend shifted hard to value extraction from a captive audience”
“Google is distracted by AI and letting Google News, now un-captained, run into the pier.”
“All I've ever seen is just the same tabloid-style articles any time I've searched it”
“I cannot find it either on Google News/Search, with tools.”
“Google is not supporting this product as they could.”
“Google News has been garbage for a long time”
“Google News is one of their worst products”
“following a link sends me to a neverending captcha loop”
“stories that went against the narrative were scrubbed from search results, sometimes within the same day”
“Google has abandoned Google News and let it crash into the dock.”
“Google News seems better but my news reading is not a main activity”
“Google news is pretty terrible right now almost all interesting new sources are paywalls”
“There is still Google News and Google Scholar, no Javascript required”
“It's more and more and more clickbait.”
“A grim reminder that google does track you all over the internet.”
“Google started killing more services than it was announcing (Wave, News, +, etc)”
“I got the ick from Google News and couldn’t find a news app that just showed my sources, algorithm-free.”
“Google lets me alter weights.”
“Effective clustering is the really interesting technology Google News has had for a long time.”
“Google News used to have "see 349 other articles on this story" which really showed how pointless news organisations were”
“I don't want anyone curating the current events or long-form I read.”
“in my Google news feed with the constant barrage of nonsense”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.