What is RSS?

If you would like to know more about this RSS thing, then you’ve come to the right place!

RSS is a system by which you can get th latest updates from many websites delivered to one place. That place could be another website, a desktop piece of software or even through your email inbox. This saves you hassle, as you don’t have to visit hundreds of websites every day; and time, because when websites don’t have updates you don’t visit them needlessly.

The places where RSS feeds are brought together can be called news readers, or aggregators. Most are free of charge to use, so you can experiment and see which work best for you.

Web based

These readers are in fact websites in their own right. This has the advantage that you can access your feeds wherever you are, using any computer with a web connection.

Desktop based

Desktop applications that you have to installed on your computer have the advantage of downloading website updates to your computer, so you can access them when you aren’t online. The disadvantage is that they are stored on one computer, so aren’t as mobile.

Browser based

Many of the modern web browsers allow you to subscribe to RSS feeds themselves. These aren’t as sophisticated as the desktop packages nor as agile as the web based offerings. However, they may be easiest to use for total beginners.

How to use RSS

The standard icon that is used to show that a website produces an RSS feed is an orange square with some white radio waves on it:

Orange RSS icon

If you see one of these icons and click on it, then one of two things will happen. In the best case scenario, you will be whisked away to your RSS reader of choice, and offered the chance to subscribe to that feed. Easy.

The alternative is that a page of what looks like computer code will be displayed - this is the XML code that makes up the RSS feed. In order to subscribe to this feed, you need to copy whatever is in the address bar of your browser (select it all with your mouse, then choose ‘Copy’ from the ‘Edit’ menu). Next, go into your reader, and find the option to add a new subscription. Hit that and then paste the address (’Paste’ from the ‘Edit’ menu) into the box provided.