Now that Google Reader is slowly making its way down that old dusty trail, alternative services have started cropping up begging for your traffic and your feed-reading clicks. We'll all miss Google Reader, but when we asked you last week what your best alternatives to the service were, you responded with more nominees than we could possibly feature. We highlighted the top five in the five best Google Reader alternatives, and then put them to an all-out vote to determine the Lifehacker community favorite. Now we're back to highlight the winner.


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By a massive 65% of the vote, Feedly was your Google Reader alternative of choice, partially because it's free, cross-platform, and available on multiple devices. Plus, they make importing your Google Reader subscriptions so ridiculously easy that it's worth a try. As of right now, they still use Google for syncing, but the team at Feedly is planning their own syncing engine to replace their dependence on Google Reader before it shuts down. With luck, all Feedly users will have a seamless transition to a post-Google Reader era, and never even notice that Google turned off the lights.

In second place with over 17% of the vote was The Old Reader, a web-based feed reader that was modeled after Google Reader and incorporates many of its features (including some that Google removed from Reader long ago.) It's a little slow to import and there's massive demand (and there are no mobile apps yet), but it's a good alternative if you want a service that's as close to Google Reader as you can get. Behind it in third place with close to 7% of the vote was NewsBlur, another sharp looking webapp that makes importing easy—just look out, they've shut down free accounts for now, so stay tuned for when they open them back up. Right behind it with 6% of the vote was Pulse, which doesn't use Google Reader's backend at all, but still lets you keep tabs on the news (and now offers a way to import your Google Reader subscriptions.) Bringing up the rear in fifth place with just over 5% of the votes cast was Netvibes, a free and functional replacement for Google Reader that also serves as a good-looking dashboard, complete with widgets for weather, news, and other events.

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The Hive Five is based on reader nominations. As with most Hive Five posts, if your favorite was left out, it's not because we hate it—it's because it didn't get the nominations required in the call for contenders post to make the top five. We understand it's a bit of a popularity contest, but if you have a favorite, we want to hear about it. Have a suggestion for the Hive Five? Send us an email at tips+hivefive@lifehacker.com!