Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Do You Use RSS?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 98 posts

Re: Ask HN: Do You Use RSS?

#81

Post by kevincox »

KronisLV wrote: post #51

A while ago I tried finding a nice RSS reader that would be detached from the browser, but didn't find too many nice options out there. But as it turns out, Thunderbird actually has a built in feed reader, which now nicely aggregates both my e-mails, spam e-mails and both news that I might care about as well as the ones I don't. So the experience is very similar to dealing with e-mails - occasional items that I care…

I also read news via Thunderbird but instead of using its built-in reader I use a rss-to-email service. This way my feeds are synced across devices via IMAP. On mobile I use K9 (which is apparently rebranding to Thunderbird now, go figure).

Re: Ask HN: Do You Use RSS?

#82

Post by kevincox »

AlphaGeekZulu wrote: post #6

RSS is actually the only mechanism that I use to subscribe to any news source, including YouTube channels. If a news source does not support RSS itself and there is no workaround to get it otherwise as RSS, I will not subscribe to it. For reading, I use Feedbro in Firefox and Flym on Android.

Exactly the same for me. I get most of my news via RSS. And when I "run out" then I go browse sites like HN or Reddit as a form of extra discovery. (I also get top HN posts and some searches/topics from HN and Reddit as RSS feeds). I'm constantly adding new subscriptions and unsubscribing from old ones that aren't valuable to me.

Re: Ask HN: Do You Use RSS?

#83

Post by kevincox »

trelane wrote: post #34
gerikson wrote: post #13

Yes. I pay for Feedly. I use RSS (well, Atom) in my blogs.

I do also. RSS is a Free and open standard, something this world is dearly in need of more of. I use Liferea on non mobile.

Free and open is important but my biggest reasons for using RSS are:

1. I get to choose what I see. No one can hide content from me.

2. It doesn't encourage Platforms. I can just as easily watch content from PeerTube or Odysee as YouTube. I can subscribe to any random blog just as easy as Tumblr or Medium. No need to for every author to be on every site that someone might look at.

Re: Ask HN: Do You Use RSS?

#84

Post by kennethko »

RSS is how I filter and consume the majority of my news, blogs, HN, newsletters, and monitor Google Alerts for domain specific questions or topics that I'm interested in.

For the client, I've landed on FreshRSS for the web/desktop experience as it allows me sufficient control to group and tag articles for my own needs. Deployment is simple: docker-compose on a small Droplet that hosts a few other apps. It's helpful that there are a few RSS reader apps on iOS that support syncing with self-hosted FreshRSS instances, as well.

Re: Ask HN: Do You Use RSS?

#85

Post by trelane »

kevincox wrote: post #83
trelane wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do also. RSS is a Free and open standard, something this world is dearly in need of more of. I use Liferea on non mobile.

Free and open is important but my biggest reasons for using RSS are: 1. I get to choose what I see. No one can hide content from me. 2. It doesn't encourage Platforms. I can just as easily watch content from PeerTube or Odysee as YouTube. I can subscribe to any random blog just as easy as Tumblr or Medium. No need to for every author to be on every site that someone might look at.

2. is a direct consequence of being a Free and open standard. In order to be portable, it is best if it's a Free and open standard, so that anyone who wants to can interoperate.

Re: Ask HN: Do You Use RSS?

#87

Post by kazinator »

I use it only when (very rarely) looking for something on Craigslist.

Oh, wait; doh! I forgot the twits got rid of it some years ago, impairing the hell out of the usability of that site.

RSS is useful in the following way: the reader is vaguely structured like an e-mail box, where you have folders representing various feeds. You can dismiss items you've already seen, just like marking e-mail read.

New items are similar to new e-mails. You get some status visuals on the folders like new items unread with a count.

Almost a decade ago, also, I used a certain RSS feed program on an android phone to automatically download news podcasts, and listen to them while cycling. How that works is that the RSS items contain URLs of media files like mp3. Those get downloaded and played. Instead of going into some streaming site or app to get the latest news, the thing is fetching them for you, making them available locally in its UI. The items expire automatically. It made sense with poor mobile networks and data plans; it would sync while you're on Wi-Fi and then you have the programs there when you're on the road without using mobile data.

Re: Ask HN: Do You Use RSS?

#89

Post by kevincox »

trelane wrote: post #85
kevincox wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free and open is important but my biggest reasons for using RSS are: 1. I get to choose what I see. No one can hide content from me. 2. It doesn't encourage Platforms. I can just as easily watch content from PeerTube or Odysee as YouTube. I can subscribe to any random blog just as easy as Tumblr or Medium. No need to for every author to be on every site that someone might look at.

2. is a direct consequence of being a Free and open standard. In order to be portable, it is best if it's a Free and open standard, so that anyone who wants to can interoperate.

It's related but not all standards allow for this sort of decentralization. IRC is an open standard and it still adds friction to be a member of multiple networks.

Re: Ask HN: Do You Use RSS?

#90

Post by anelson »

Another NewsBlur user here, ever since Google killed off Google Reader. All of my news and regular content consumption, including HN, is via RSS. If a site doesn’t have a well behaved RSS feed then I won’t be able to follow it.

I’ve used a number of blog engines over the years and don’t recall ever having a problem with RSS. It seems like a solved problem on the publishing side.

I do find it annoying when the RSS feed publishes only partial content without making it clear that it’s doing so.

Post reply on HN