For years, RSS was our peaceful sanctuary away from algorithmic feeds, social media doomscrolling, and ad-tech.

Recently, though, a new tragedy of the commons caught up with our readers:

1. AI-generated slop: Synthetic fluff, ChatGPT boilerplate, and generic roundups ("In today's fast-paced world...").

2. Hard paywalls: Feeds flooded with 2-sentence teaser stubs from Bloomberg, WSJ, and Forbes demanding $40/mo.

3. Clickbait & ragebait: Sensationalist curiosity gaps designed to hijack attention.

4. Surveillance tracking: Feed URLs littered with tracking parameters (utm_*, fbclid, affiliate tags).

A while ago, the team at Still Unbuilt analyzed 16 years of Hacker News comments (2008–2024). It turned out the #1 most requested piece of software in HN history (with 45 independent requests) was literally:

A mute button for news feeds.

Existing readers don't filter feeds natively, and services like Feedly charge $15/month for basic keyword filtering. So I built MuteFeed — a fast, free, open-source proxy that brings quiet back to your feeds.

HOW IT WORKS

MuteFeed sits transparently between your favorite reader (NetNewsWire, Reeder, Feedly, Miniflux) and the open web:

• Keep using the native reader you already love.

• MuteFeed intercepts incoming XML, applies deterministic heuristic filters in under 10ms, and delivers clean articles.

• Built in pure Go standard library with an embedded web UI: single 15MB binary, zero database, <15MB RAM, 100% open source (MIT).

WHAT FEEDBACK WOULD HELP MOST?

You can try it live without installing anything at https://mutefeed.onrender.com (or check out the repo at https://github.com/enlivee/mutefeed).

I’d love your thoughts:

1. Which feeds or publications give you the most noise right now?

2. What custom rules or synthetic phrases should we add to our built-in filters?

3. What would make MuteFeed an indispensable part of your daily information diet?

Thank you for checking it out! 🎧