HyperTexting Is a New, Non-AI-Powered Approach to Legacy RSS Feeds.
There are a dizzying number of ways to keep up with what’s new online and find interesting articles and publications: among them are the chaotic algorithms of social networks , classic news portals, good old RSS feeds , traditional web search, AI-powered search , and whatever Google is trying to do with its Discover service these days.
That’s a lot of apps, and the latest one I noticed while trying to cut through the information noise (according to TechCrunch ) is HyperTexting (currently only for iOS ). It’s a kind of RSS reader, although it doesn’t market itself as such, and the basic idea is that you get updates from the sites and people you care about in chronological order—without ads, AI, or algorithmic interfaces.
As the HyperTexting app’s homepage states, “HyperTexting is your news feed without ads, algorithms, or artificial intelligence. It’s like a ‘for you’ feed, but it actually works… for YOU (not for platforms).” You can even create your own HyperTexting profile and publish your own posts, which other users can then follow. Here’s how the app works and why you might want to consider this simplified way to stay up-to-date with online news.
What does a HyperTexting feed look like?
When you first launch the HyperTexting app, you don’t need to register or create an account right away: you already have access to a set of news sources that you can add or edit as needed.
The “Timeline” tab displays news and updates in chronological order. To refresh the feed, pull down from the top as before, or click on individual articles to read them. As with any RSS reader, whether the full article text or just a link to the website is displayed depends on the publication. To change colors and other settings, click the toggle button (top right).
It’s strange to return to a feed like this in 2026. I felt a slight twinge of nostalgia as I slowly scrolled through the headlines, devoid of AI-generated animal videos, ads for nonexistent mobile games, snippets of podcast interviews, and snippets of stories I’ve seen dozens of times that have gone viral again. You can select news sources in order when you’re ready to view them. Each post comes with buttons for sharing or viewing on the web, and I also love that each source has its own profile with additional ways to explore: for example, “Posts” to view all stories and “Attachments” to view all visuals.
Profile pages work much like social media profiles, and you can follow and unfollow posts directly from these pages. Many sites also offer multiple news feeds—including ESPN, which has different feeds for different shows and sports—so if this option is available, you can further customize your news list.
Finding and Configuring the HyperTexting Ribbon
The “Explore” tab is where you can discover and follow new websites, as well as the “Popular” tab, which displays the 100 pages with the most links from your current feeds. If you’re interested in only the most popular news from your chosen sources, this is a great place to return to again and again.
Go to the “Discover” section, and you can choose new sites to subscribe to: you can enter a few search keywords or the full URL, then click “Subscribe” when the desired publication appears. It appears that this part of HyperTexting is a work in progress, as I wasn’t able to add all the necessary sources, including the esteemed publication you’re currently reading.
Perhaps the app is experiencing some initial development issues, or the ability to subscribe to a page depends on how it’s hosted (the HyperTexting website states that support for WordPress sites is “coming soon”). In any case, I found many feeds that interested me, even if I couldn’t access them all.
You can switch to the Activity tab to return to articles you’ve previously viewed, much like a simple browsing history, and the Posts tab lets you contribute to the HyperTexting community—this feature isn’t widely used yet, but the goal is to eventually provide users with mini-blogs that work a bit like social media feeds.
There’s still some work to be done, but I’m already enjoying what HyperTexting is doing, and it reminds me of how internet searches used to be—I’ll be keeping an eye on it as another way to stay up-to-date. It’s definitely worth installing if you enjoy having new content presented in a clear and accessible way.