Disclosure: Hushread is our app. We’ve tried to be fair, and we say where the others are the better choice.
Google News is free, enormous and needs no setup, and its algorithms decide what you see. Hushread shows only the sources you pick, in chronological order, and still groups each event into one story the way Google’s Full Coverage does. If you want the widest possible net for free, stay with Google News. If you want to decide exactly which outlets and topics fill your feed, Hushread is the better fit.
Hushread vs Google News at a glance
Prices as of September 2026:
| Feature | Hushread | Google News |
|---|---|---|
| Who decides what you see | You. Everything you follow arrives in order | Algorithms, personalized using your activity on Google services and YouTube |
| Add your own RSS feeds or websites | Yes, including websites without a feed | No |
| Subreddits, YouTube channels, Facebook pages | Yes, on every plan including Free | No |
| One story per event | Yes, from your sources, with a day-by-day timeline and chapters | Yes, Full Coverage, from Google’s sources |
| Trending | Ranked by how many distinct publishers cover a story, hour by hour, plus a Local tab | Headlines and Top Stories set by language and region |
| Hiding a source | Don’t follow it and it never appears; keyword mute rules | “Hide all stories from [source]”, which some 2026 reviewers say no longer works for them |
| Ads | Nothing injected into your feed; reader view has no ads or popups | Play listing says it contains ads |
| AI | Two-sentence quick take inside articles you open | AI article overviews piloted on participating publishers’ pages |
| Audio | Narration of any article, plus a one-minute daily briefing | Audio briefings, with custom topics on Android |
| Price | Free with up to 5 sources; Pro $14.99/year | Free |
| Who’s behind it | One independent developer |
Sources for Google News: how stories are chosen, Full Coverage, hiding sources, Play listing, AI overviews pilot, audio briefing topics.
The core difference: who picks the stories
Google is clear about it: “Computer algorithms determine which stories show up… and in what order.” Headlines and Top Stories depend on your language and region. For you, Following and Picks for you are personalized using your settings and “activity on Google services and YouTube” (Google support). You can follow topics, sources and places and tap “Fewer stories like this”, but the app still chooses from Google’s whole index.
Hushread works the other way around. You choose the sources, and no algorithm ranks or injects anything. The structure it adds is limited to which articles belong together (grouped into one story), which ones are copies (collapsed), and which stories are moving (Trending). Your feed only carries the outlets you chose and the topics you named (the separate News section of top global stories is the one exception, and it stays apart from your feed).
Both approaches group coverage by event. The difference is whose outlets end up in the group.
Where Google News wins
It’s free with no limits. There’s no source cap, and you don’t have to set anything up. Hushread’s free plan is 5 sources, which is enough to try the idea but not to match Google News’s breadth; most people coming from Google News will want Pro.
It shows you outlets you’d never think to follow. Full Coverage pulls in reporting from across Google’s index, and Google says it “has no personalization other than your language, region, and subscriptions.” Hushread only groups coverage that your sources and topics bring in, so a story’s timeline is as wide as what you follow. For comparing the widest possible spread of reporting, Google News is ahead.
Some people like the personalization. A June 2026 Play reviewer wrote that “the algorithm does a pretty good job of identifying my interests,” and an App Store reviewer liked that “you can actually hide news stories… the ‘follow’ section makes it easy” (App Store reviews). If that’s your experience, there’s little reason to change.
Scale and backing. Google News has over a billion downloads on Google Play and is still getting features, like custom audio briefing topics on Android in August 2026. Hushread is built by one developer. It’s newer and smaller, and its story grouping is automatic and occasionally imperfect: two pieces of coverage of the same event can land in separate stories.
Where Hushread wins
You decide the sources, including ones Google News can’t take. Add any RSS or Atom feed, a website without a feed (Hushread learns to read the page), a topic like “chip exports”, a subreddit, a YouTube channel or a Facebook page. Google News doesn’t accept custom feeds, and since late March 2025 it “will no longer use RSS feeds” that publishers submitted (Publisher Center). A Reddit user looking to leave put it simply: it would be “better if I could add good old RSS feeds” (Reddit).
A source you don’t want never shows up. In Hushread your feed is built only from the outlets and topics you follow, so an outlet you never added doesn’t sit in it. On Google News, 2026 reviews tell a different story: “it seems Google has removed the option to hide/block sources” (App Store, August 2026) and “You can never get rid of X as a news source” (App Store, July 2026). Keyword rules in Hushread can also mute, mark read or notify you about specific terms.
Grouping without repeats. Coverage of one event from different outlets becomes one story, and syndicated copies, cross-feed duplicates and rewrites collapse under the freshest version. “See whole story” opens a day-by-day timeline of every outlet’s coverage with a summary of how it developed, and long stories chain into chapters. You can see live examples on our stories page. Compare that with the App Store reviewer who found that a thumbs-down on Google News brought back “the same headline, only from a different outlet.” Our post on RSS readers that remove duplicates explains the difference between collapsing copies and grouping coverage.
Trending you can understand. Hushread’s Trending ranks stories by how many distinct publishers are covering them, hour by hour, and flags the ones surging. There’s a Local tab for your country and a tab per section. It’s a count of publisher attention, not a guess at what will keep you scrolling.
No ads in your feed, and AI kept small. The Google News Play listing says it contains ads, and its App Store privacy label lists data linked to you for “Third-Party Advertising” (App Store). Hushread injects nothing into your feed and its reader view has no ads or popups. The feed keeps the original headlines; a two-sentence AI quick take appears inside an article when you open it.
You still get headlines. Hushread has a separate News section with the day’s top global stories in a regional mix and a one-minute audio briefing, so you don’t lose the “what’s happening in the world” view by moving to your own sources.
Switching in 5 minutes
- Install Hushread on iOS or Android, or open app.hushread.com in a browser. It syncs across all three.
- List the outlets you actually click in Google News. Most people open a handful of the same publications. Find them among the 2,500+ curated sources, paste a site’s link, or start from a one-tap bundle.
- Choose your five. On Free you can follow up to five sources, so start with the ones you’d miss most. Go Pro ($14.99 a year) when you want more.
- Recreate your followed topics. If you follow a topic in Google News, add it as a topic source in Hushread and matching articles will arrive.
- Check Trending and News. Trending shows which stories from your sources are surging, by how many publishers cover them, with a Local tab; the News section and its audio briefing cover the wider world.
You don’t have to delete Google News. Some people keep it for the occasional Full Coverage deep dive and use Hushread as their daily feed.
Verdict: which one fits you
- You want everything, free, with no setup: Google News.
- You want the widest spread of outlets on a single story: Google News Full Coverage.
- You’re tired of an algorithm choosing for you: Hushread. Our guide to a news app without an algorithm covers more options.
- You follow blogs, subreddits, YouTube channels or niche sites: Hushread, since Google News can’t add them.
- There’s a source you can’t get rid of on Google News: Hushread, where your feed only carries outlets you added (plus articles matching topics you named).
If you’re still weighing other apps, our Google News alternatives roundup compares seven.
FAQ
Is Hushread free like Google News?
Hushread is free forever with up to 5 sources, and that includes stories, Trending, AI quick takes, the audio briefing, narration, folders, tags and search. Pro removes the source limit and costs $14.99 a year (regional pricing may differ). Google News is free with no source limit and carries ads.
Can I add RSS feeds to Google News?
No. Google News doesn’t let readers add their own feeds, and it stopped using publisher-submitted RSS feeds in late March 2025. If you want RSS and grouped stories together, Hushread takes RSS and Atom feeds, and websites without a feed.
Does Hushread have something like Full Coverage?
Yes, within your sources. Articles from different outlets about the same event are grouped into one story, and “See whole story” shows every outlet’s coverage day by day with a summary. It only groups what your sources and topics bring in, while Full Coverage draws on Google’s whole index.
How do I block a source on Google News?
Google’s help page describes a “Hide all stories from [source]” option. Several 2026 reviewers say it no longer works for some sources, and a support thread shows some sources have been unhideable since 2019 (support thread). In Hushread, your feed is built from the outlets and topics you follow, and keyword rules can mute terms you don’t want.
If you like Google News but want to be the one choosing the outlets, Hushread keeps the story grouping and hands you the source list. Hushread is free with up to 5 sources on iOS, Android and the web. Try Hushread.