RSS News Feeds
What are RSS news feeds?
An RSS news feed is a handy way of informing you when a web site you’re interested in has published new content.
A feed is basically just a web page formatted to be read by a computer application rather than people.
The popular definition of RSS is ‘Really Simple Syndication’.
You can link to as many feeds as you want from any web site providing this service.
The benefits of this are:
- You save time by not needing to visit each site individually to check for new content.
- You ensure your privacy, by not needing to register to a site’s email newsletter which also reduces the possibility of spam.
The number of sites offering RSS feeds is growing rapidly and most major sites have this service.
How do I start to use RSS feeds?
The first thing you need is something called a News Reader. This is the application that checks your feeds and lets you read any new articles.
There are many free News Readers available which are either built-in or plugins to a browser, are web-based like the popular Google Reader or are downloadable as a desktop application. The list below will get you started.
Windows:
Mac OS X:
On-line:
Bloglines
FeedZilla
NewsGator
MSN
My Yahoo!
When you have chosen a news reader, all you have to do is to decide what content to receive. If a web site you’re interested in offers this service then add their feed to your News Reader.
How do I know if a site offers this service?
If a site has RSS feeds you will usually see the following orange icon 
.
Just click or drag the URL of the feed into your news reader.
Some browsers, including Firefox, Opera and Safari, automatically check for feeds for you when you visit a website making it easier to subscribe.
For more details, please check your browsers website.