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---
title: "Using RSS"
date: 2020-11-28T21:30:44-05:00
draft: true
---
Today's internet is built around silos: websites want to be the place you have to come to see update. For example: you have to come to Twitter to check out someone's post, and while you are there you may stick around for a while. RSS is different. RSS is a format in which a website publishes its posts, with a specified title, description, a link to the original post, and maybe some other details. You use a program that checks this list regularly, and it will show you when a new item appears, like how your email inbox may show a collection of emails from many sources.
That's what makes RSS different. Rather than having to check periodically on your own, your reader checks for you. You don't need to check twitter regularly, and while you are there get stuck scrolling recommended items. RSS puts all the new stuff together for you to easily browse at your own pace.
A lot of sites still support RSS. It's a great way to browse content as well. There are many online feed readers, such as inoreader, feedly, and miniflux. Personally, I host my own version of tt-rss. These services let you sync feeds across devices. There are local only programs like Thunderbird and flym for android that are generally completely free, but don't sync as easily. Email me if you're interested in using tt-rss, and I can give away a few accounts on my instance.
Once you decide on a reader, you can paste a site's page into the reader to subscribe to it. You can subscribe via an RSS link, which may be included at the bottom of a page, or usually just with the normal URL (the reader will look for an RSS link automatically). Additionally, I have created this Firefox extension which will popup with RSS links on a page: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/rss-bridge-helper/.
My extension does more than just show normal links. If you search for a public RSS-bridge URL, you can also use it for Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube feeds. These sites don't provide RSS natively, and RSS-bridge is a website that generates feeds for other sites so they work in your feed reader. Youtube does have some native RSS support, but they do not advertise it.
RSS is a way to decentralize the web again. It can help us move beyond just scrolling on one website controlled by ad-tech businesses. It works in for your interests, rather than forcing you to work within the confines of a particular website.
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