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BCBoy911@lemmy.ca to Technology@lemmy.worldEnglish · 2 months ago

In Praise of RSS and Controlled Feeds of Information

blog.burkert.me

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In Praise of RSS and Controlled Feeds of Information

blog.burkert.me

BCBoy911@lemmy.ca to Technology@lemmy.worldEnglish · 2 months ago
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The way we consume content on the internet is increasingly driven by walled-garden platforms and black-box feed algorithms. This shift is making our media diets miserable. Ironically, a solution to the problem predates algorithmic feeds, social media and other forms of informational junk food. It is called RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and it is beautiful. What the hell is RSS? RSS is just a format that defines how websites can publish updates (articles, posts, episodes, and so on) in a standard feed that you can subscribe to using an RSS reader (or aggregator). Don’t worry if this sounds extremely uninteresting to you; there aren’t many people that get excited about format specifications; the beauty of RSS is in its simplicity. Any content management system or blog platform supports RSS out of the box, and often enables it by default. As a result, a large portion of the content on the internet is available to you in feeds that you can tap into. But this time, you’re in full control of what you’re receiving, and the feeds are purely reverse chronological bliss. Coincidentally, you might already be using RSS without even knowing, because the whole podcasting world runs on RSS.
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  • neuracnu@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    2 months ago

    This is your casual reminder that Lemmy was built to support RSS. Just look for the RSS logo on the top of any community’s list of posts:

    And for those pining for the old days of Google Reader, I have been a huge fan of Newsblur.

  • cyrano@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 months ago

    Come on everyone. Share your best RSS setup. No wrong answers

    • plenipotentprotogod@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      TBH I just use the Feeder app on my phone. Fully self-contained. No account, no server, no middleman of any kind. Just the app.

      I’ve been meaning to set up something more elaborate, but this really does work fine, and I like to mention it in these threads for anyone who’s interested in RSS but thinks it’s a big lift to set up. It can be complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. Download an app and start adding publications that interest you. That’s all it takes to get started.

      • freeman@feddit.org
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        2 months ago

        Don’t forget to backup your subscriptions. Its really easy, it just generates a opml textfile, which every other reader could import.

    • Jack_Burton@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      I use Feeder on android from fdroid. It was like a breath of fresh air going through a list of things I’m interested in, reading articles, and not getting sucked into the comments because there just aren’t any.

      Added bonus, its very limited so there’s no doom scrolling, and refreshing the feed only updates with something new like every few hours. Spend a lot less time on my phone now.

    • BCBoy911@lemmy.caOP
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      2 months ago

      Akregator on desktop, Read You on mobile.

    • jarmitage@mander.xyz
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      2 months ago

      NetNewsWire on iOS has been awesome for years. Free and open source to boot.

    • 001Guy001@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      I use Feedbro on Firefox. It allows you to create rules for feeds with specific checks/actions (for example to filter out items that contain specific words)

    • x00z@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      FreshRSS docker container on my VPS.

    • Alex@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      I have paid for Newsblur ever since they cancelled Google Reader. I also use elfeed on various emacs instances for project and update feeds of various types.

    • mbirth 🇬🇧@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      News Explorer on macOS, iOS and ipadOS. Syncs everything, so whatever device you pick up, you can continue reading where you left off. Also supports following people on Mastodon and YouTube channels via RSS.

    • A_norny_mousse@feddit.org
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      2 months ago

      I use it for podcasts, the app is gPodder but doesn’t require a gPodder account. It does have a search function though.

    • Lem453@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      FreshRSS self hosted. Just navigate to the website in your browser, install it to android via a browser ‘app’. Assign the app to a gesture.

      Now i swipe from the left and my RSS opens. Fully self hosted with no tracking beyond the websites you visit.

      • TunaLobster@lemmy.world
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        I installed Read You for my android client. I don’t have the fancy gesture set up though.

    • hummingbird@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Theoldreader.com on the desktop and gReader Pro on Android. That app is ancient but still works and no modern app comes close to its UI.

    • lepinkainen@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Self hosted FreshRSS, read both on the web client and on NetNewsWire linked to the installation on my phone.

      Built a few feed hydrators for sites with shitty feeds with no content in the feed.

      Not my blog, but a great write up on how to do it: https://hamatti.org/posts/i-built-custom-rss-hydrator-for-better-github-and-youtube-feeds/

    • kazerniel@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Paying for Newsblur’s hosted version - I need its keyword filtering feature and I like to support small companies :)

  • (des)mosthenes@lemmy.world
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    I ended up building my own ingestor and discovery (finds RSS feeds across the web, adds it to a queue for me to review) application with over 15k sources and always growing. I serve the content through a public front end if anyone is interested: https://startyparty.dev/ - all articles link out to their sources. all media plays in the app. no tracking, no analytics, no gimmicks. free to use. videos use youtube embed player unfortunately. lemmy, mastodon, blue sky, youtube, podcasts, youtube music, general articles, browser based games and more.

  • FauxPseudo @lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I stopped using RSS a long long time ago. And then when I left Reddit and found Lemmy, I also restarted my RSS feeds and cleaned up the links. I don’t go there everyday but I do enjoy when I get there.

    But I have asked in numerous places for people’s best RSS links and always come up with zero feedback.

    So let’s try it here. What are your best RSS links?

    • Axum@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      2 months ago

      Ars technica still supports rss by topic

      https://arstechnica.com/rss-feeds/

    • whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 months ago

      I tend to go for the fire hose approach with news agencies AP, democracy now, CCN, RT Al Jazeera, BBC, France 24, Fox, common dreams, NPR, pew research, open source post, and a few geographically local sources. Entertainment pbs has a few, tvline, xkcd. Using capy reader.

      • FauxPseudo @lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        by links?

        • whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          2 months ago

          Exported and cut out the local stuff, not sure on the etiquette so just posted under a spoiler. A couple like AP and Reuters are re-streams from a third party.

          Tap for OPML with links

          <?xml version=“1.0” encoding=“UTF-8”?> <!-- OPML generated by Capy Reader --> <opml version=“1.1”> <head> <title>Capy Reader Export</title> </head> <body> <outline text=“Al Jazeera – Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera” title=“Al Jazeera – Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“https://www.aljazeera.com/” xmlUrl=“https://www.aljazeera.com/xml/rss/all.xml”/> <outline text=“BBC News” title=“BBC News” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world” xmlUrl=“https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/world/rss.xml”/> <outline text=“Blog – Hackaday” title=“Blog – Hackaday” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“https://hackaday.com/” xmlUrl=“https://hackaday.com/blog/feed/”/> <outline text=“CNN.com - RSS Channel - App International Edition” title=“CNN.com - RSS Channel - App International Edition” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“https://www.cnn.com/app-international-edition/index.html” xmlUrl=“http://rss.cnn.com/rss/edition.rss”/> <outline text=“Common Dreams” title=“Common Dreams” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“https://www.commondreams.org/” xmlUrl=“https://www.commondreams.org/feeds/news.rss”/> <outline text=“Consider This from NPR” title=“Consider This from NPR” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510355/considerthis” xmlUrl=“https://feeds.npr.org/510355/podcast.xml”/> <outline text=“Democracy Now!” title=“Democracy Now!” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“http://www.democracynow.org/” xmlUrl=“https://www.democracynow.org/democracynow.rss”/> <outline text=“France 24 - International breaking news, top stories and headlines” title=“France 24 - International breaking news, top stories and headlines” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“https://www.france24.com/en/” xmlUrl=“https://www.france24.com/en/rss”/> <outline text=“Latest World News on Fox News” title=“Latest World News on Fox News” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“https://www.foxnews.com/world” xmlUrl=“https://moxie.foxnews.com/google-publisher/world.xml”/> <outline text=“Life Kit” title=“Life Kit” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510338/all-guides” xmlUrl=“https://feeds.npr.org/510338/podcast.xml”/> <outline text=“PBS NewsHour - The Latest” title=“PBS NewsHour - The Latest” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“https://www.pbs.org/newshour/” xmlUrl=“https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/headlines”/> <outline text=“Pew Research Center” title=“Pew Research Center” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“https://www.pewresearch.org/” xmlUrl=“https://www.pewresearch.org/feed/”/> <outline text=“Reuters | Breaking International News & Views” title=“Reuters | Breaking International News & Views” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“https://www.reuters.com/” xmlUrl=“https://rss.app/feeds/SdI37Q5uDrVQuAOr.xml”/> <outline text=“RT World News” title=“RT World News” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“https://www.rt.com/news/” xmlUrl=“https://www.rt.com/rss/news/”/> <outline text=“Short Wave” title=“Short Wave” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510351/short-wave” xmlUrl=“https://feeds.npr.org/510351/podcast.xml”/> <outline text=“The Open Source Post” title=“The Open Source Post” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“https://fosspost.org/” xmlUrl=“https://fosspost.org/feed”/> <outline text=“This American Life” title=“This American Life” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“https://www.thisamericanlife.org/podcast/rss.xml” xmlUrl=“https://www.thisamericanlife.org/podcast/rss.xml”/> <outline text=“Top News: US & International Top News Stories Today | AP News” title=“Top News: US & International Top News Stories Today | AP News” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“https://apnews.com/hub/apf-topnews” xmlUrl=“https://rsshub.app/apnews/topics/apf-topnews”/> <outline text=“TVLine” title=“TVLine” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“https://tvline.com/” xmlUrl=“https://tvline.com/feed/”/> <outline text=“Up First from NPR” title=“Up First from NPR” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510318/up-first” xmlUrl=“https://feeds.npr.org/510318/podcast.xml”/> <outline text=“Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!” title=“Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“https://www.npr.org/podcasts/344098539/wait-wait-don-t-tell-me” xmlUrl=“https://feeds.npr.org/344098539/podcast.xml”/> <outline text=“World Cafe Words and Music Podcast” title=“World Cafe Words and Music Podcast” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510008/world-cafe-words-and-music-from-wxpn” xmlUrl=“https://feeds.npr.org/510008/podcast.xml”/> <outline text=“xkcd.com” title=“xkcd.com” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“https://xkcd.com/” xmlUrl=“https://xkcd.com/rss.xml”/> </body> </opml>

  • gary@piefed.world
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    I love RSS! For the longest time I used Miniflux, and I still have an instance running, but lately I’ve just been using the Unread app on iOS. That’s one of the many great things about RSS: you’re not tied down to any specific app or platform, you can pack up and take your feeds wherever you want if you wanna try something different.

    • Tehhund@lemmy.world
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      Seconding Miniflux! It’s my main RSS reader. I pay for the hosted version, it’s super cheap and works great. And since it’s simple HTML I can write Greasemonkey scripts to customize it a bit.

      • gary@piefed.world
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        I love it! Even the built in CSS and JavaScript customization goes a long way. I’m not creative enough to figure out anything crazy with Greasemonkey lol

  • Rooty@lemmy.world
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    Sadly, a lot of sites have started shuttering their RSS feeds and hiding content behind paywalls. I have to periodically clean my feed and remove dead links.Luckily, there are a lot of sites that basically copy AP and Reuters news verbatim.

  • commander@lemmy.world
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    I switched back to RSS sometime ago. Been using Inoreader

  • The Picard Maneuver@piefed.world
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    2 months ago

    I set up RSS a few months ago and do enjoy it.

    RSS Guard on PC, Feeder on mobile.

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