The Joy Of RSS, Part 2: RSS Readers And Subscriptions
By Gerard McGarry on 21st July 2005, filed in Internet Technologies. You can leave a response below.
Welcome to the second article in the Joy Of RSS series, which covers RSS reader software and how to subscribe to an RSS feed. If you’re not sure what RSS is, read the introductory article.
What Software Do I Need To Use RSS?
In order to view RSS feeds, you need to have some software that is capable of receiving RSS information.
This can be software that exists on your machine, such as a web browser, email program or a standalone RSS Reader program. Alternatively (and my favourite), you can sign up to an online RSS service which you can access from anywhere.
Web Browsers
Modern web browsers are starting to build support for RSS directly into their software. FireFox and Opera can both detect an RSS feed on a site and display an icon to alert you.
In the latest version of Opera (current version: 8.01), a blue RSS icon appears in the address bar opposite the site address. Clicking on this gives details of the feeds available. Once you subscribe, you can access the feed from a Feeds menu, and it will open up in an email-type interface.
In FireFox (current version: 1.0.6), a little orange icon appears in the bottom-right corner of the window to alert you. Clicking on the icon gives you a list of feeds you can subscribe to, but unlike Opera, FireFox integrates these ???live bookmarks??? into the Bookmarks folder.
Word also has it that the forthcoming version of Internet Explorer 7 will also have RSS support built in, although it???s not clear what form this will take.
Software-based RSS Readers
There are a growing number of standalone RSS readers that you can install on your PC. FeedDemon is among the most popular, but there are others, such as RSS Reader or RSS Bandit.
Mozilla Thunderbird is an email program that now has support for RSS, so you can check and read your subscriptions at the same time as your email. This was my preferred reader until I discovered Bloglines.
Online RSS Readers
Online RSS services are very popular because they allow you to check manage and read your subscriptions from anywhere with an Internet connection. This is currently my personal favourite way of accessing my RSS feeds. The beauty of the web-based services are that they are platform independent, so they’re accessible whether you use Windows, Linux or Mac.
Bloglines is a free RSS service, now part of the Ask Jeeves group. I recommend signing up for a free account and setting up some sample RSS subscriptions to test it out.
Newsgator also has a free online RSS service which I???ve tried. Although the design is ???fresher??? than Bloglines, it???s a little clunky around the edges. I haven???t directly compared the two services, but at the moment I prefer Bloglines.
How Do I Find Out If A Site Uses RSS?
If a website carries an RSS feed, look for a little orange rectangle somewhere either to the left or right of the page (depending on where the links are) or right at the bottom. The box will either contain the initials RSS or XML in white text.
Alternatively look for a link on the page that mentions an RSS feed.
If you use the FireFox browser, you will see a small orange square at the bottom right-hand corner of the window, which allows you to subscribe to the feed through your bookmarks.
Read on for the final article in the Joy of RSS series, The History and Technology of RSS
[...] There have been quite a number of additional, good folks but I’m running of steam for now. I would like to take one moment and mention Gerard at Scribble Designs who has a very cool post about The Joy Of RSS! [...]