In this guide I’ll explain what RSS Feeds are, why to use them, and what the advantages are over traditional notification methods.
The modern way
Nowadays to stay up to date you need to install every proprietary application, visit multiple websites filled with ads daily and have you inbox flooded with emails.
Or at least this is what a lot of people is doing.
There is a simple and easy way to aggregate and have all your updates in a single place: RSS Feeds.
Oh yeah, by doing this you also avoid some security issues with modern Push notifications.
How do RSS work?
First of all, please have a look for yourself, learning things this way is much more effective. But to be short RSS provide a webpage with all the content that you want to share and “subscribing” to an RSS Feed means checking it from time to time and, if it is changed, you can view the new content!
Doing this by hand is a pain and doesn’t make a lot of sense so there are specific application that groups multiple feeds, automate the check and update it automatically; below you can find some applications but there are a lot more:
Linux
I personally use Newsboat, a terminal reader with Vim-like keybinds; otherwise I also know RSS-Guard, I used it for a short time and it seems nice.
Windows
RSS-Guard or QuiteRSS, I personally like the former better graphically.
Thunderbird Betterbird is another alternative. Actually more or less any modern email client has a built-in RSS Feed reader, but Betterbird is Open Source and let’s face it, any other email client is horrible and frustrating at the very least. Betterbird is decent enough, but I still recommend considering it only as a last choice.
Android
I use Feeder, I find it simple and intuitive.
I also recommend Read You, it has very modern graphics and gets the job done.
Both of these apps can be found on F-Droid, it’s simply an “alternative Play Store” where apps are Open Source.
Apple in general
As not an Apple user, one Open Source application that I found and it doesn’t seem too bad is NetNewsWire, which is good for any Apple device.
Configuring your feed
Now you have to insert all your RSS urls into the reader, the process slightly change for each one, but in general this should be the process:
- Click the “Add” button
- Paste in the feed url
- Configure some options (folder, tags, time interval to check for updates etc…)
- Enjoy!
If you have a lot ot urls you can also import a list from an OPML file and export your current list to use it on another device.
To have them synchronized between your devices you can use a lot of solutions, I use rsync.
Here’s my feeds that you can import right now (there is a lot of random stuff :)): click here!
Where to find rss feeds?
The best sites will have a particular designation for their feed (like the RSS image you find at the end of every page on this site), but for others you’ll have to do a little more work.
In most cases you’ll be able to search the Internet for something like “Site RSS Feed” (perhaps using my search engine) or by going to the site in question, right-clicking with your mouse, selecting “inspect” and searching the code for “.xml” or “.atom.”
Should you find a feed with a “.atom” extension, fear not, it’s pretty much the same thing, most RSS Feeds support them with no difference from “.xml”.
Sometimes though, some sites don’t provide a feed at all.
What to do in such cases? I host RSS-Bridge, a program that, as per its name, acts as a “bridge” for all those sites that don’t provide an RSS feed, generating it itself!
I specify of course that the project is not made by me, I just implemented it on my server and make it publicly available, as many other people do.
You can find it here, it’s still quite bare but I’m gonna add things in the future.
RSS-Bridge comes with a multitude of channels (if you see a few it’s because I haven’t enabled them yet), with even the ability to custom program them.
I would also add that there are plenty of sites from which to get rss feeds for those platforms that seem not to support them: Nitter for twitter, Invidious for YouTube, and many others (P.S. These sites allow you to see content without having to log in and without advertising!).
Should you not see a bridge you are interested in or have any doubts about this guide, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Even if I rarely use RSS-Bridge for myself, I have to quote this rant from this application’s Github:
Dear so-called “social” websites.
Your catchword is “share”, but you don’t want us to share. You want to keep us within your walled gardens. That’s why you’ve been removing RSS links from webpages, hiding them deep on your website, or removed feeds entirely, replacing it with crippled or demented proprietary API. FUCK YOU.
You’re not social when you hamper sharing by removing feeds. You’re happy to have customers creating content for your ecosystem, but you don’t want this content out - a content you do not even own. Google Takeout is just a gimmick. We want our data to flow, we want RSS or Atom feeds.
We want to share with friends, using open protocols: RSS, Atom, XMPP, whatever. Because no one wants to have your service with your applications using your API force-feeding them. Friends must be free to choose whatever software and service they want.
We are rebuilding bridges you have willfully destroyed.
Get your shit together: Put RSS/Atom back in.