What is RSS

Lets ask AI:

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed format used to publish frequently updated information, such as blog entries, news headlines, or podcasts, in a standardized format.

Yeah, that basically covers it.

You can think of RSS as a way to get notifications from almost any website and put them all into a nice organized feed inside your RSS reader.

RSS reader: and app that fetches RSS feeds from the specified sources.

RSS feed: a link from a website that contains a feed.

Why use them?

I had RSS feeds for many years, but only a few months ago I managed to replace all social media with it. Instead of spending hours a day on reels or shorts, you can spend that time reading Articles and learning new thinks about stuff that actually interests you. Tell me, when was the last time an Instagram reel encouraged you to start a project, write an article or was in any way useful to you? What I mean by this is actual utility, not a thing you could have searched up in 30 seconds anyways.

A beautiful thing about RSS feeds is that they have an end, if you read every post, that’s it, you have to wait for more to be posted. If you have a really bad internet addiction, this limit can be a good wake up call to go do something a bit more productive.

How to find RSS feeds

Put a link of your favorite website into https://www.rsslookup.com/ and that’s it.

You can also find loads of feeds on awesome-rss-feeds github repo.

RSS feeds exist on most websites in some way, but some are easier to find then others.

YouTube RSS Feeds

YouTube has RSS built in, but it’s not as easy to find.

1. Inspect the YouTube channel you want to add
2. Search “RSS” in the HTML
3. You will eventually stumble upon a link like this https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=CHANNEL_ID
4. Copy this link and put it into your RSS reader

How to get Twitter RSS Feeds

1. Open the Twitter user in https://xcancel.com
2. The link to the feed will be in the top right corner

How to get Reddit RSS feeds

Add a .rss at the end of the link right after the / and you will have it.

There are many more social media that require an unique approach, but these are the most common ones.

Finding a good RSS feed reader

I will recommend only open source apps and only the ones I like. If you don’t like anything listed here and find a good FOSS project, feel free to contact me so I can add it to the list: @fedorvin:matrix.org.

Android

I will link the source code of the projects. All of them can be obtained though f-droid or obtanium (recommended).

• Read You - is an Android RSS reader presented in Material You style.
• Feeder - my personal choice for a RSS reader

IOS

Available in the AppStore.

• netNewsWire - the best FOSS RSS reader I managed to find for IOS and Mac

Desktop

I read my feeds primarily on my phone, so only the best suggestions here).

• sfeed - suckless style RSS reader for Linux

My Workflow with RSS Feeds

I already talked about how getting an eink reader motivated me to start reading. RSS feeds perfectly complements my setup, as they allows me to find interesting articles on the go, and then read them later when have more free time. This turns the “mindless scrolling” into a info-sorting tasks, where you save only the things that will be interesting to read about later on. To save articles, I simply “print” them through Firefox and then sync them to my pinenote. I can then export all the highlights and save them to my notes allowing me to accumulate knowledge almost passively.

I Specifically enjoy feeds that combine articles from personal blogs (see the next heading ) as they allow me to find interesting people. If I like someones blog, I add it to my RSS reader under the “people” tag so that I can keep up with the amazing creators I find on the internet.

A Few News Feeds That I like

• hacker news - the feed i enjoy the most. It covers loads of interesting topics and links directly to personal websites

• lobste.rs - same idea as hacker news but has slightly different articles posted (still great)

Conclusion

It will be hard to switch, but its worth every second of your time. Your time will no longer be as wasted as it was before.