In Praise of RSS and Controlled Feeds of Information (blog.burkert.me)
from BCBoy911@lemmy.ca to technology@lemmy.world on 03 Oct 15:38
https://lemmy.ca/post/52737581

#technology

threaded - newest

mesamunefire@piefed.social on 03 Oct 16:06 next collapse

I love the idea of the internet coming to us rather than us going out to the internet. And RSS is an excellent example.

I want a system that will cache articles, comics, essentially websites and stay on a system until I am ready to read it. Then it will transform into a queue (RSS clients), email, ebook/pdf format, etc…etc… and ill read it. Its easy for server admins (people are not bombarding their systems), its easy for users (get content how they want it to work) and its better for the internet as a whole. Its one of my favorite tech that has not gone away.

Ive went from google reader, to thunderbird rss, to freshrss on my own system. My phone queues it all up in the morning and in the afternoon at work, where internet is spotty, ill read my pre-downloaded articles. Its a great system.

TechnoCat@lemmy.ml on 03 Oct 16:25 next collapse

email is pretty close to the system you mention.

mesamunefire@piefed.social on 03 Oct 16:32 collapse

Id rather subscribe to certain entities instead of having ALL entities being able to send me messages. Every time I have my own mailserver, it gets overwhelmed with spam.

But yes email as a technology is really close to perfect.

TechnoCat@lemmy.ml on 03 Oct 16:33 next collapse

understood. 👍🏻

drosophila@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 04 Oct 09:29 collapse

Yep, instead of a single address you should be able to issue keys that let people message you, and when you receive a message you should be able to see what key was used to send it.

And of course you should be able to revoke keys (tell your mail server to no longer accept messages signed with it).

rezad@lemmy.world on 03 Oct 22:29 collapse

freshrss doesn’t cache images. how do you do it offline?

mesamunefire@piefed.social on 03 Oct 22:35 collapse

Couple different ways.

It came with my setup script back a year or so ago but https://github.com/FreshRSS/Extensions/tree/master/xExtension-ImageProxy works. Also the caching occurs when it gets transfered over to my phone or client. The client does the heavy lifting. I dont really care after that.

rezad@lemmy.world on 03 Oct 22:39 collapse

I remember that extension but I didn’t user it because it didn’t cleanup after it self (old not needed images stayed in cache).

what is “your phone”? you mean an app? I know about text caching (I don’t know if frehsrss has an option to get original page for RSSs that has just a simple text that redirects to full page), but even inoreader that had that (if i remember correctly) didn’t have image caching.

mesamunefire@piefed.social on 03 Oct 22:42 collapse

TTRSS reader. It has a “cache image” button on it. I assume it works.

Ive never had any issues even outside of internet. comics come in from what I see.

rezad@lemmy.world on 03 Oct 22:43 collapse

it works with freshrss self hosted?

mesamunefire@piefed.social on 03 Oct 22:57 collapse

Yep doing it now! :)

rezad@lemmy.world on 03 Oct 23:04 collapse

tt-rss and frehsrss are two different self-hosted apps. are you sure using that app doesnt mess with freshrss?

mesamunefire@piefed.social on 03 Oct 23:10 collapse

…Im not sure what to tell you. freshrss has an API that TTRSS-Reader works on the backend with. And its working. Fresh ALSO has its own frontend that can work.

In preferences theres an “connection” area. Otehr than showing you a lot of screenshots im not sure what else to say. GL!

commander@lemmy.world on 03 Oct 16:24 next collapse

I switched back to RSS sometime ago. Been using Inoreader

neuracnu@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 03 Oct 16:31 next collapse

This is your casual reminder that Lemmy was built to support RSS. Just look for the RSS logo on the top of any community’s list of posts:

<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/pictrs/image/bca68516-114a-46a3-a56c-e3478c70cc96.webp">

And for those pining for the old days of Google Reader, I have been a huge fan of Newsblur.

TeamAssimilation@infosec.pub on 03 Oct 17:21 collapse

This is not technical, but I hope the subscriptions are getting Lyric the dog some meat along with “Home cooked meals of green beans, sweet potatoes, carrots, and brown rice”. Dogs require meat, it’s not their fault.

The_Picard_Maneuver@piefed.world on 03 Oct 16:50 next collapse

I set up RSS a few months ago and do enjoy it.

RSS Guard on PC, Feeder on mobile.

cyrano@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 03 Oct 16:54 next collapse

Come on everyone. Share your best RSS setup. No wrong answers

exu@feditown.com on 03 Oct 17:12 next collapse

Nextcloud News and its app

mbirth@lemmy.ml on 03 Oct 17:19 next collapse

News Explorer on macOS, iOS and ipadOS. Syncs everything, so whatever device you pick up, you can continue reading where you left off. Also supports following people on Mastodon and YouTube channels via RSS.

YetAnotherNerd@sopuli.xyz on 03 Oct 20:24 collapse

Yeah, this has been fantastic. Oh, and it can convert the R-word to a feed. ;)

plenipotentprotogod@lemmy.world on 03 Oct 17:23 next collapse

TBH I just use the Feeder app on my phone. Fully self-contained. No account, no server, no middleman of any kind. Just the app.

I’ve been meaning to set up something more elaborate, but this really does work fine, and I like to mention it in these threads for anyone who’s interested in RSS but thinks it’s a big lift to set up. It can be complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. Download an app and start adding publications that interest you. That’s all it takes to get started.

freeman@feddit.org on 04 Oct 12:25 collapse

Don’t forget to backup your subscriptions. Its really easy, it just generates a opml textfile, which every other reader could import.

TeamAssimilation@infosec.pub on 03 Oct 17:24 next collapse

TheOldReader.com

Free for 100 feeds, although it added a small ad in the home page recently, which can be blocked btw.

Jack_Burton@lemmy.ca on 03 Oct 17:56 next collapse

I use Feeder on android from fdroid. It was like a breath of fresh air going through a list of things I’m interested in, reading articles, and not getting sucked into the comments because there just aren’t any.

Added bonus, its very limited so there’s no doom scrolling, and refreshing the feed only updates with something new like every few hours. Spend a lot less time on my phone now.

Teknikal@eviltoast.org on 03 Oct 18:15 next collapse

Mines very basic I just replaced the Google feed using Octopi launcher so a swipe left opens capyreader instead. It’s recent so haven’t put all that much on there just UK headlines some basic tech stuff and the onion of course.

A_norny_mousse@feddit.org on 03 Oct 18:17 next collapse

I use it for podcasts, the app is gPodder but doesn’t require a gPodder account. It does have a search function though.

jarmitage@mander.xyz on 03 Oct 18:25 next collapse

NetNewsWire on iOS has been awesome for years. Free and open source to boot.

BCBoy911@lemmy.ca on 03 Oct 18:34 next collapse

Akregator on desktop, Read You on mobile.

001Guy001@sh.itjust.works on 03 Oct 18:54 next collapse

I use Feedbro on Firefox. It allows you to create rules for feeds with specific checks/actions (for example to filter out items that contain specific words)

vodam@lemmy.zip on 03 Oct 20:25 next collapse

a pretty basic newsboat setup though i do have a script set to update it every 30 minutes (maybe i could set it to wait longer, i dont need immediate news forever)

stsquad@lemmy.ml on 03 Oct 23:03 next collapse

I have paid for Newsblur ever since they cancelled Google Reader. I also use elfeed on various emacs instances for project and update feeds of various types.

Lem453@lemmy.ca on 04 Oct 04:12 next collapse

FreshRSS self hosted. Just navigate to the website in your browser, install it to android via a browser ‘app’. Assign the app to a gesture.

Now i swipe from the left and my RSS opens. Fully self hosted with no tracking beyond the websites you visit.

TunaLobster@lemmy.world on 04 Oct 12:15 collapse

I installed Read You for my android client. I don’t have the fancy gesture set up though.

hummingbird@lemmy.world on 04 Oct 09:11 next collapse

Theoldreader.com on the desktop and gReader Pro on Android. That app is ancient but still works and no modern app comes close to its UI.

MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip on 04 Oct 10:27 next collapse

Capy reader on my phone. Lightweight and filters blacklist out.

Since i’ve found no readers for shell that just dump the important bits, without ncurses background shenanigans and whatnot, i’ve made my own in 100 lines POSIX shell. It’s kinda slow (500 ms), since it calls multiple times awk per line. Maybe i’ll redo it in python sometime.

x00z@lemmy.world on 04 Oct 11:51 next collapse

FreshRSS docker container on my VPS.

kazerniel@lemmy.world on 04 Oct 13:27 next collapse

Paying for Newsblur’s hosted version - I need its keyword filtering feature and I like to support small companies :)

lepinkainen@lemmy.world on 04 Oct 17:42 collapse

Self hosted FreshRSS, read both on the web client and on NetNewsWire linked to the installation on my phone.

Built a few feed hydrators for sites with shitty feeds with no content in the feed.

Not my blog, but a great write up on how to do it: hamatti.org/…/i-built-custom-rss-hydrator-for-bet…

desmosthenes@lemmy.world on 03 Oct 19:26 next collapse

I ended up building my own ingestor and discovery (finds RSS feeds across the web, adds it to a queue for me to review) application with over 15k sources and always growing. I serve the content through a public front end if anyone is interested: startyparty.dev - all articles link out to their sources. all media plays in the app. no tracking, no analytics, no gimmicks. free to use. videos use youtube embed player unfortunately. lemmy, mastodon, blue sky, youtube, podcasts, youtube music, general articles, browser based games and more.

FauxPseudo@lemmy.world on 03 Oct 19:48 next collapse

I stopped using RSS a long long time ago. And then when I left Reddit and found Lemmy, I also restarted my RSS feeds and cleaned up the links. I don’t go there everyday but I do enjoy when I get there.

But I have asked in numerous places for people’s best RSS links and always come up with zero feedback.

So let’s try it here. What are your best RSS links?

vodam@lemmy.zip on 03 Oct 20:23 next collapse

its been a while since i checked out mine, but the ones i do still sometimes read are

hackernews frontpage: hnrss.org/frontpage low-tech magazine: solar.lowtechmagazine.com/feeds/all-en.atom.xml xkcd comic: xkcd.com/rss.xml oglaf (often nsfw): www.oglaf.com/feeds/rss/ and k6bd (a long comic, highly recommend starting at the beginning): killsixbilliondemons.com/feed/

they might not be the best for you, though, you should try looking for if the websites you read still have an rss page

axum@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 03 Oct 21:39 next collapse

Ars technica still supports rss by topic

arstechnica.com/rss-feeds/

whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 03 Oct 22:44 next collapse

I tend to go for the fire hose approach with news agencies AP, democracy now, CCN, RT Al Jazeera, BBC, France 24, Fox, common dreams, NPR, pew research, open source post, and a few geographically local sources. Entertainment pbs has a few, tvline, xkcd. Using capy reader.

FauxPseudo@lemmy.world on 03 Oct 23:06 collapse

by links?

whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 03 Oct 23:17 collapse

Exported and cut out the local stuff, not sure on the etiquette so just posted under a spoiler. A couple like AP and Reuters are re-streams from a third party.

Tap for OPML with links

<?xml version=“1.0” encoding=“UTF-8”?> <!-- OPML generated by Capy Reader --> <opml version=“1.1”> <head> <title>Capy Reader Export</title> </head> <body> <outline text=“Al Jazeera – Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera” title=“Al Jazeera – Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“www.aljazeera.com” xmlUrl=“www.aljazeera.com/xml/rss/all.xml”/> <outline text=“BBC News” title=“BBC News” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“www.bbc.co.uk/news/world” xmlUrl=“feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/world/rss.xml”/> <outline text=“Blog – Hackaday” title=“Blog – Hackaday” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“hackaday.com” xmlUrl=“hackaday.com/blog/feed/”/> <outline text=“CNN.com - RSS Channel - App International Edition” title=“CNN.com - RSS Channel - App International Edition” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“www.cnn.com/app-international-edition/index.html” xmlUrl=“rss.cnn.com/rss/edition.rss”/> <outline text=“Common Dreams” title=“Common Dreams” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“www.commondreams.org” xmlUrl=“www.commondreams.org/feeds/news.rss”/> <outline text=“Consider This from NPR” title=“Consider This from NPR” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“www.npr.org/podcasts/510355/considerthis” xmlUrl=“feeds.npr.org/510355/podcast.xml”/> <outline text=“Democracy Now!” title=“Democracy Now!” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“www.democracynow.org” xmlUrl=“www.democracynow.org/democracynow.rss”/> <outline text=“France 24 - International breaking news, top stories and headlines” title=“France 24 - International breaking news, top stories and headlines” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“www.france24.com/en/” xmlUrl=“www.france24.com/en/rss”/> <outline text=“Latest World News on Fox News” title=“Latest World News on Fox News” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“www.foxnews.com/world” xmlUrl=“moxie.foxnews.com/google-publisher/world.xml”/> <outline text=“Life Kit” title=“Life Kit” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“www.npr.org/podcasts/510338/all-guides” xmlUrl=“feeds.npr.org/510338/podcast.xml”/> <outline text=“PBS NewsHour - The Latest” title=“PBS NewsHour - The Latest” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“www.pbs.org/newshour/” xmlUrl=“www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/headlines”/> <outline text=“Pew Research Center” title=“Pew Research Center” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“www.pewresearch.org” xmlUrl=“www.pewresearch.org/feed/”/> <outline text=“Reuters | Breaking International News & Views” title=“Reuters | Breaking International News & Views” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=“www.reuters.com” xmlUrl=“rss.app/feeds/SdI37Q5uDrVQuAOr.xml”/> <outline text=“RT World News” title=“RT World News” description=“” type=“rss” version=“RSS” htmlUrl=

fodor@lemmy.zip on 04 Oct 03:19 collapse

Maybe I’m not understand what you’re asking. You want to build a list of feeds to follow, right? To avoid single point failure or censorship, right?

So stop asking for one link, and start telling us what topics you care about. There is no point in a non-custom list of RSS feeds. You need to start the process yourself.

FauxPseudo@lemmy.world on 04 Oct 03:57 next collapse

If I asked just for the topics I care about then I’m not helping anyone else reading. I’m looking for the quality sources. The ones that aren’t filled with filler. The ones that have the key news stories and the oddball stuff.

kazerniel@lemmy.world on 04 Oct 13:26 collapse

I follow some of theguardian.com’s topical feeds - each tag and author has their own feed. It’s a UK-based site, but it has international editions and mostly does good quality centre-left journalism.

LSNLDN@slrpnk.net on 04 Oct 05:13 collapse

If I understand correctly he’s asking for links to sites that have an RSS feed available, to fill up some app like NetNewsWire with good content. I found this hard myself, just getting news sources or whatever, since I think a lot of these sites have disabled any old RSS feeds they used to have to funnel users through their algorithms

jayjayjay@piefed.social on 03 Oct 20:26 next collapse

Kill the Newsletter

Turns newsletter subscriptions into RSS feeds. Helps keep my inbox clean and is helpful on sites that don’t advertise a feed.

fodor@lemmy.zip on 04 Oct 03:16 next collapse

It’s not ironic, is it? The creators of RSS knew exactly what they were trying to create, as did RSS users, and what the bad alternatives would be like. If you are new to the show, welcome!

Rooty@lemmy.world on 04 Oct 04:50 next collapse

Sadly, a lot of sites have started shuttering their RSS feeds and hiding content behind paywalls. I have to periodically clean my feed and remove dead links.Luckily, there are a lot of sites that basically copy AP and Reuters news verbatim.

gary@piefed.world on 04 Oct 05:05 next collapse

I love RSS! For the longest time I used Miniflux, and I still have an instance running, but lately I've just been using the Unread app on iOS. That's one of the many great things about RSS: you're not tied down to any specific app or platform, you can pack up and take your feeds wherever you want if you wanna try something different.

Tehhund@lemmy.world on 04 Oct 12:59 collapse

Seconding Miniflux! It’s my main RSS reader. I pay for the hosted version, it’s super cheap and works great. And since it’s simple HTML I can write Greasemonkey scripts to customize it a bit.

gary@piefed.world on 04 Oct 16:32 collapse

I love it! Even the built in CSS and JavaScript customization goes a long way. I'm not creative enough to figure out anything crazy with Greasemonkey lol

MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip on 04 Oct 10:14 collapse

It’s simple and elegant, no matter if RSS or Atom. Easy to parse too.Yet somehow, finding a good rss reader app is like finding a needle in a haystack.

Edit: i’m satisfied with Capy Reader, but thanks for the recommendation.

kazerniel@lemmy.world on 04 Oct 13:10 collapse

After more than a decade of Feedly, I’ve been using Newsblur for the last couple years. I love its filtering feature where I can set some tags or title keywords and just hide all matching posts from that feed - it’s the only thing that made some feeds usable.