Summary
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RSS (actually simple syndication) allows you to subscribe to site feed and receive new articles information.
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RSS is an open and simple format, which encourages publishers to syndicate the material for adaptable reading.
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Podcast rely on RSS for syndication, and is a great option for social media feed.
Catching the news means that either to dodge the pawl on traditional media sites, or through toxic comments on social media, is correct? Wrong: There is another way. The RSS has been informing us for more than two decades, and it is equally relevant today.
RSS (actually simple syndication) is a technique that allows sites to publish a feed of its content. As a reader, you can subscribe to an RSS feed and get information when new articles are published, from news stories to social media updates.
Like the Old Betamax format for videos, RSS is an example of a worse technique that is a format winning war, because Atom option, in many ways, is better. But most customers treat RSS and nuclear mutual relations, so as a user, you do not need to be aware of the difference.
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As long as I can remember, I am using RSS. Perhaps the time of launch was not enough – which was in 1999 – but perhaps not a long time later, of course for the last two decades. The main reasons here are to catch it online.
It is easy to use
Because RSS is such a simple format, it is very easy to use. Subscribing to a new feed is straightforward: copy the URL of the feed and paste it in your feed reader. Once you do this, your reader will present an article of feed, when the new content is published, informs you.
This simple process means that it is very low to be wrong. When I get a feed that I want to subscribe, I just need a URL and RSS client. Feed can vary greatly among publishers: some complete text provides, while others involve only one summary, for example. But these differences are usually trivial and reading the reading experience in the same app instead of switching between many different sites is well worth it.
I actually started appreciating the RSS’s collective appeal ability when I worked for a company related to education. Our RSS feeds were incredibly popular, something that surprised me that teachers are often considered, given the conservative disturbance for technology. But it turns out that the school, with thirst for its fancy digital whiteboard and topical information, was an ideal match for RSS.
Simple open format
At its core, the RSS format is simple and accessible. Built on top of XML – a markup language is the same, and is related to HTML -RSS, an open format that anyone can do. Like HTML, you can see the text source of RSS feed to debug or learn from it. It also means that if you are so inclined, you can also write your own RSS feed by hand.
The RSS feed includes a list of items, each of which represents a story/article. Typically (although it is not required), each item has a title, a link, a description and a pubdate. So a sample item from BBC’s RSS feed looks like this:
<item>
    <title>
        Lady Gaga and Pulp rumored for surprise Glastonbury sets as full
        line-up revealed
    title>    <link>
        https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2jd8e6918o
    link>
    <description>
        With three weeks to go, the UK's biggest festival unveils its full
        line-up, plus a few mystery sets.
    description>
    <pubDate>
        Tue, 03 Jun 2025 09:00:15 GMT
    pubDate>
item>
From the point of view of a developer, this simplicity is a very large bonus, which, in turn, means that the owners of the site are more likely to provide feed. CMS software and web framework almost always involves support for RSS feed as it is very easy to provide.
I can read the news the way I want
RSS encourages publishers to syndicate their content in a normal format. As a result, consumers can find their feed desired and match in many different ways.
For example, most RSS clients will allow you to see either personal feed or everything together in a single feed. It is a bit a little bit how Google’s Gmail gives you access to “all mail”, but also divides it into primary, publicity and social. The difference is that RSS gives you the ability to flexibility too much.
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A specific RSS client will allow you to feed the group into the folder. This is a great opportunity to organize your reading. Maybe you want to create a group from the subject matter, and can separate your game from your current affairs. Alternatively, you may want to separate the updated material often, which you quickly immerse from long -term articles that are less frequently published, but with more depth.
It can go much further, some customers with bookmarking functionality, AI feeds, and recently offered groups published.
It is necessary for podcast
One of the main causes of podcast, just about, is their use of RSS as a foundation. Once more, a simple open format is to thank. Although podcast is a very different type of medium, RSS can syndicate them, such as it can occur with traditional text-based articles.
Many RSS clients will especially complete the podcast. Even if they do not, since a podcast is just an RSS feed, you will still be able to add them and be able to follow a link to hear in the external app.
I can manage it better than social media
Most of the social media feeds are opinion. On X, the “for You” feed determines which material serves you on a complex algorithm that tries to guess your interests another. It may look like magic, but many of us are worried about how such algorithms work behind the curtain and what effects they are working, we driving us on the content attracting attention that we can avoid otherwise.
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RSS feeds are usually different. The feed algorithm of a site will often be as simple as “Include an item for each article in chronological order.” As long as a feed does not conform to your user account, it is an united-for-all approach that avoids the use of personal data.
The irony is that some social media apps offer RSS feeds, even if they are a little hidden. Blussky publishes a feed with every user account. For example, the official BSky.App account uses URL to subscribe to your RSS feed, just add “/RSS” to the URL.
It is easy to start using RSS and there are lots of customers to choose.
Choose a customer
Feed readers come in one of the two forms: a web app or a native customer. A RSS web app is useful as you can access it from various devices, but a native client can offer strict integration with your OS.
On Mac, I have used two customers: Reader and Netnevswire. Reader There is a good, polish app that looks and feels like a native Mac app. It does everything you need, but it requires a subscription ($ 10/year) to read more than ten feeds.
Netnewswire Is an independent and open source. My only complaint is that it does not allow you to add a feed to more than one folder, but otherwise it is perfect for my RSS needs.
on the web, Feedly The most popular option is and supports a lot of adaptation. Its free tier gives you 100 feeds and three folders. It also provides iOS and Android apps.
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The Clade app is a small feed reader that works perfectly.
Search feed
Most RSS apps let you paste the URL of a website and if one is present, the RSS feed will automatically get the feed. Many sites promote their RSS feed with direct links; See out for the words “feed” and “RSS”, and the common RSS icon that looks like waves emanating from a circle, usually orange and white.
Your browser should also have extensions which supports RSS. Google’s own RSS membership expansion There is a good option for Chrome. This adds an icon to your toolbar that lights up when the feed is available, although I found that it does not work 100% time.
By thwarting these options, you may have to resort to viewing the page source and manually searching for feed URL. You have to know what you are looking at, but you should need to use this final resort if there is a feed in a site.
