"it's like progress, but without the getting better part."

I use Google Reader a lot. A LOT. And I really liked it, until I loaded it this morning and saw the new interface, which squishes all the actual content down into one corner and spaces out the headlines so that they’re a right pain to scroll through. Argh. So now I am in the market for recommendations: I just want a browser based feed reader that has a fairly sparse interface and allows me to sort feeds into folders and display them with the oldest items first, but I am beginning to feel like I am asking for the moon on a stick. I’ve been looking at various alternatives all morning, but they all do things I don’t like, e.g. insisting on showing me what’s popular (I get enough of that from facebook) or only display new items since my last visit (!). All suggestions gratefully received; I am tearing my hair out here, and feel like I am probably going to end up sticking with Google Reader as the least worst option. D:

(In other things-that-are-annoying-me news, it would be a bad idea to trim a few inches off my own hair with scissors, right? Right.)