I’m new to RSS and I’m trying to get into it. I don’t really check out news all too often, so mostly the other parts of RSS. Thanks.
My recommendation is to install a browser extension that indicates when a site has a feed. Then when you are reading an article you like you can consider subscribing. Eventually you will gather a list of good sources.
Personally I use https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/feed-preview/. But many other options are available.
If you are just getting started and want to build up a list quickly:
- Err on the side of subscribing if you are not sure. After reading a few articles it than unsubscribing is free if you decide that the feed isn’t for you (unlike email newsletters where you still somehow end up getting spam in the future). I think of adding a feed to my reader not as much as subscribing but starting a trial for that feed. If I like the content then I stay subscribed.
- Just find new content how your normally would. Lemmy and social media are good for finding new things to follow. You can even use Google News. Once you find good content it usually has a feed.
- You can find topic-based starter packs. Often in the form of OPML files. However I find that these often have far too much volume. But you can still start with them and then quickly unsubscribe from the feeds that don’t interest you.
Once you have a good base then you can just let it self-manage more or less. A lot of the new feeds I find are from links in my subscriptions. But if I get through my news I still go on Lemmy and often find new sources there as well.
Thanks!
What “other parts of RSS”? I’ve only ever seen news, blogs and podcasts.
I meant like comics, and blogs and just interesting feeds that share interesting stuff like history or facts, etc.
I’ve never used RSS for news, blogs, or podcasts (although it’s likely my podcast application actually does this behind the scenes). Before switching to Sonarr and Jackett, I used RSS for torrents, which would get filtered and automatically downloaded for TV shows. And I’ve used it for entire and multiple regions on Craigslist for specific cars or motorcycles or other items with a notification email setup when that item pops up.
That was my reason for asking. I don’t know anything about RSS for torrenting. But usually people asking, I want something for ‘other purposes’… it means either pirating things or lewd stuff. 😉 But this isn’t the case here.
Back in the day, I’ve used RSS and Atom feeds for my favorite 10 news sites and 20-30 blogs I was reading regularly. The way I got those feeds was: I’d go to my favorite websites and have a look in the top right of the page or at the bottom, and they’d link their feed somewhere. I think at some point firefox had a feature to show some kind of symbol in the location bar, when a site had a feed.
But times have changed. Websites stopped having RSS feeds. RSS readers vanished. And no one writes proper blogs anymore. Maybe a trending story on medium.com Recently I’ve seen influencers advertise their newsletter… Which is a way more medieval thing in my eyes.
I’ve stopped because I was reading too much news and articles and wasting too much time. But I’m still using it for podcasts and maybe I’m going to pick it up again. My consumption of media has changed anyways. Today, I waste my time on Lemmy. And read news here. But I have heard the word ‘RSS’ come up more often nowadays. Seems to be on the rise again. But I wouldn’t know how people use it as of today.
Depends on your RSS reader! I use “reeder” for Mac and iOS, it does an excellent job of sucking in RSS feeds just from a top-level URL (eg: theverge.com) and keeps everything synced via iCloud. Before that I used feedly in conjunction with a reader app (feedly would keep track of the RSS feeds and sync what was read/unread between clients) but honestly I just found syncing with iCloud faster/easier for me personally.
As for finding the feeds, it’s just a matter of curating from the news sites you personally enjoy the most. If you google a site + RSS you can usually find a link to their feed.
Side note: it drives me crazy if a site posts a ton of articles every day, so sometimes I’ll try a site out in my Reeder app, get a feel for it, and sometimes remove it if it becomes too much.
If you are looking for a way to find RSS/Atom feeds on sites you are interested in, but don’t list an RSS/Atom feed:
Here is a Textise version and the original version of a Zapier article talking about how to get an RSS feed manually from (many) sites that don’t list one.
I do this just because I like to and it takes but a few seconds to put through my QuiteRSS (GUI) or NewsReader (terminal based) feed reader apps.
Here’s the basics from the article (the article itself lists more and more in depth).
A shocking number of websites are built using WordPress—over 40% of destinations on the web. This means there’s a good chance that any website you visit is a WordPress site, and all of those sites offer RSS feeds that are easy to find.
To find a WordPress RSS feed, simply add /feed to the end of the URL; e.g., https://justinpot.com/feed. I do this any time I visit a website that I’d like an RSS feed for—it almost always works.
If it doesn’t work, here are a few tricks for finding RSS feeds on other sites.
If a site is hosted on Tumblr, add /rss to the end of the URL. Like this: https://example.tumblr.com/rss
If a site is hosted on Blogger, add feeds/posts/default to the end of the URL. Like this: example.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
If a publication is hosted on Medium, add /feed/ before the publication’s name. So medium.com/example-site becomes medium.com/feed/example-site
YouTube channel pages double as RSS feeds. Simply copy and paste the URL for the channel into your RSS reader. You can also find an OPML file for all of your subscriptions here.
Find an RSS feed for any site by checking the source code…
I go to news sites and add “/feed” or “/rss” to the URL.
Same!
I just recently powered up a FreshRSS docker and needed to add feeds, some websites doesn’t advertise their RSS link but by adding /feed or /rss to the URL, most websites will give you a legit feed!
