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I just wish Mozilla introduce subscribing to RSS as a first class feature in Firefox. If they can introduce and integrate Pocket, I think an open technology lik
by knight17 8y ago
I just wish Mozilla introduce subscribing to RSS as a first class feature in Firefox. If they can introduce and integrate Pocket, I think an open technology like RSS deserves a fair chance. But they'd need to invest a little bit to make it easy to subscribe—similar to following on Twitter/Instagram or Liking pages on Facebook—to receive site updates. Having to find and enter byzantine URLs is not the way to go although personally, I do not have any trouble doing that as I have been using RSS and feed readers for more than a decade, but that is not the case for everyone.
I just wish some consortium of like minded companies like NYT/WaPo/Guardian/BBCs/Other national dailies, Reddit, Mozilla, and even Microsoft can huddle together and come up with a new name/identity and spread it and popularise it. One can always wish.
As one commentator said in the linked article: protocols are better than platforms.
Edit: The issue here is not about obtaining the feature with add-ons and extensions, which there are many. When the focus of the organisation is on something idealistic (open web), is it too much to expect them to add it to the core of the product?
- k1m 8y agoWould like to see more effort in this area too. There was some work done a few years back at https://www.subtome.com/ https://www.subtome.com/ to make subscribing to RSS feeds easier.
- rsscircus 8y agoTotally agree! Subtome was a great project but it lack updates. I talked weeks ago with @julien51, it's creator, and he told me that it didn't have time maintaining it but he would integer contributions.
- astazangasta 8y agoCan anyone comment on why Mozilla is integrating dodgy services like Pocket and now some ill-conceived screenshot web locker? Is it just hunger for data as revenue?
- seba_dos1 8y ago"Cloud" features have been recently removed from the screenshot tool, FYI.
- prolikewhoa 8y agoNot really related, but does anyone know of an open source Pocket alternative?
- k1m 8y agoTry Wallabag: https://wallabag.org https://wallabag.org It used to be called Poche (French word for pocket) but they had to change it becuase of a legal threat from Pocket.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- m-p-3 8y agoWell they bought Pocket, so I'd assume they wouldn't want their investment to be for nothing.
- ez7r6i 8y agoThey bought Pocket AFTER they installed it by default in Firefox as some kind of PR disaster control.
- m-p-3 8y agoConspiracy Theory: Mozilla wanted to acquire the service from the beginning, but before doing so they would integrate it beforehand to stir up some drama, devalue it a little bit and buy it for less.
- dguo 8y agoFirefox used to have built-in RSS support, but it was removed in Firefox 64: https://www.zdnet.com/article/end-nears-for-rss-firefox-64-to-drop-built-in-support-for-rss-atom-feeds-says-mozilla/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/end-nears-for-rss-firefox-64-t...
- ape4 8y agoWow I never knew. I would have used it if I knew.
- y4mi 8y agoThe "rss support" was a folder, filled with links named after the article titles. It was good that it was removed, as it was useless to put it mildly
- matthewn 8y ago> The "rss support" was a folder, filled with links named after the article titles. You're describing the "live bookmarks" feature, which was only one part of the RSS functionality that was removed from Firefox. I never used live bookmarks, but I used the feed discovery and subscription functionality all the time -- only some of which can now be restored with addons.
- contravariant 8y agoThey also removed the ability to preview RSS feeds, which is annoying because one of the few certain ways to subscribe to a feed was to preview it and then hit subscribe in whatever addon you were using. In the past it was even possible to subscribe with whatever addon you prefered from the firefox RSS preview directly, but that was already lost after the jump to WebExtensions.
- zaarn 8y agoThere are addons that restore RSS previews and improve on firefox' old feature.
- PavlovsCat 8y agoRe-introduce, not introduce. Firefox not only used to do a fine job of displaying RSS feeds, it also simply displayed an RSS icon in the URL bar (if the page had the respective link elements HTML header) from which you could subscribe to all the provided feeds. There certainly was room for improvement, but still, they had it, and they canned it. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/live-bookmarks https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/live-bookmarks Thunderbird is still a mighty fine RSS reader though.
- zikzak 8y agoI've been wondering if the recent addition of AMP to Gmail as precursor to Gmail having RSS integration. I know I'm delusional but it feels good to think there might be a push back to RSS reading in a Google product.
- PavlovsCat 8y agoI wish there was pushback against the notion of "hoping" and "wishing" for companies to do the right thing. Companies should be more afraid of the ire of informed customers informing other customers, than of competition, that's the delusion I live in... they should worry about having done too little, too late, instead of us always keeping an ever slimmer hope for ever smaller breadcrumbs alive.
- taeric 8y agoGmail had rss integration through Reader back in the day. With the short lived Buzz, had easy integration for discussions on rss feeds.
- yorwba 8y agoI use the Awesome RSS addon [1] to get the icon in the URL bar back. Also RSSPreview [2] to see whether the feed actually contains what I want to subscribe to. The previous integration where you could add the feed to Thunderbird directly from Firefox with a single click was much better, though. [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/awesome-rss/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/awesome-rss/ [2] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/rsspreview/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/rsspreview/
- BenoitEssiambre 8y agoWhy not Google? Google failed to gain traction in the social network space with G+. If you can't beat them commoditize them! Why not make interoperable networks based on open standards first class citizens in chrome/chromium? Not just by adding support but also by helping move the RSS standard forward.
- dvtrn 8y agoThey had their chance. And we're still mourning the loss of Reader to this day.
- FennNaten 8y agoGoogle used to own the most used RSS feed subscription service. They shut it down. So, not Google.
- layoutIfNeeded 8y agoGood idea! Maybe one day Google will create an ecosystem around RSS. They could call it something like “Google Reader”...
- cannonedhamster 8y agoTheOldReader is a really nice RSS reader built after the demise of Google Reader. They've been consistently solid. https://theoldreader.com https://theoldreader.com
- TheMiller 8y agoI second the recommendation for TheOldReader. It's where I eventually ended up after Google Reader's demise.
- rsscircus 8y agoThere's plenty of really good solutions around : 1. Online: Inoreader, Feedly, Newsblur Newsbin, The Old Reader, Feeder... 2. Browser extension: the great Feedbro 3. Desktop: Liferea (Linux), QuiteRSS (Windows), Caffeinated, Readki, Reeder (MacOS) For RSSOwl and RSS Bandit (Windows), there's nothing new for years/ The great FeedDemon (Windows) stopped it's dev years ago. 3. Self-hosted: Tiny Tiny RSS, Fever, Leed, Selfoss
- sova 8y agoThe first part of your post puts the priority on having more software that can read a reliable formula, which I think is the opposite way to go, since the forumla is already there can't all browsers do this? Yes, but they have refused up until now, why? Because their focuses is web pages ... Make some hybrid RSS web feed with a universal interface and you have Twitter. Approach it from the software side and you have federated, inconsistent implementations of a reliable formula.
- burtonator 8y agoI'm considering integrating RSS with Polar: https://getpolarized.io/ https://getpolarized.io/ Ton on my plate now trying to focus on shipping mobile and a few other features too. I like the idea of Polar having data sources that are high quality and that the user can just easily subscribe to specific PDFs, research, or high quality content feeds. We're also going to add social content discovery which is sort of like a Twitter feed but just people who are annotating content on Polar.
- rapnie 8y agoYes, please do. It would be a great addition to an already great project.
- captn3m0 8y agoAnother +1 on this.
- dmarusic16 8y agoPolar looks great! Just the kind of service I’m looking for. (Hope an iPad/tablet version is in the offing alongside mobile.)
- bobcostas55 8y agoLooks nice but why does it need 3rd party cookies to work? Also, copy-pasting is broken: Bigtableis a distributedstoragesystemformanagingstructureddatathatisdesignedtoscaletoa verylargesize:petabytesofdataacrossthousandsofcommodityservers. Also, expected keyboard shortcuts (eg hitting delete to delete a document) don't work.
- gloflo 8y agoI am starting to get annoyed seeing you promoting it in every thread of a vaguely relatable topic. Could you please tone it down a bit? :)
- keypusher 8y agoPlease stop using HN to spam your own site.
- 8y ago
- u801e 8y ago> I just wish Mozilla introduce subscribing to RSS as a first class feature in Firefox. Fortunately, Thunderbird still has this feature.
- soapdog 8y agoI wrote about reading blogs with Thunderbird not long ago: http://andregarzia.com/2018/11/reading-blogs-with-thunderbird.html http://andregarzia.com/2018/11/reading-blogs-with-thunderbir... I think a similar setup would be good for many people here who wish to read RSS but doesn't want to add another SaaS to their life.
- beagle3 8y agoI’ve used that for over a decade, but eventually gave up and signed up for NewsBlur so reading on my phone and my laptop would be in sync. It is open source and you can run it yourself but I gave up and let Sam host it for me. The other in-sync option would be setting up an rss/imap gateway, which is not even available as a SaaS afaik, so would cost about as much in hosting (unless you already have a server you can use) and about 20 times in labor. Happy paying NewsBlur customer - even though the iOS app is a battery hog.
- pbhjpbhj 8y agoHuh? In Firefox you'd visit a webpage and if RSS feeds were available you'd be able to subscribe to them, IIRC. Where in Thunderbird do you find feeds to subscribe to?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- u801e 8y agoI always found the feed url in a web browser, copied it, and then added it manually to Thunderbird. Granted, it's not the exact same thing as how Firefox used to do it, but it works well enough once you have all the feeds you want set up.
- 8y ago
- JasonFruit 8y agoI was not disappointed to see RSS removed from Firefox, because I want my already too-complex browser to have as limited a set of functions as possible. The more first-class features they remove, the more secure and usable their product will be.
- MuffinFlavored 8y agoIf cars didn't have air conditioners... they'd be more reliable overall!!!!!
- JasonFruit 8y agoI wouldn't disagree.
- JohnFen 8y agoThe problem, of course, is that for some people, the removal of those features makes the browser no longer meet their needs. Worse, which features are "critical" varies from person to person. The flexible answer, of course, would be to have a relatively basic core browser and an extension system powerful enough to allow the features to be implemented that way. Like Firefox used to be. Unfortunately, Mozilla decided to neuter the extensions instead.
- adolph 8y agoOutlook supports RSS https://support.office.com/en-us/article/what-are-rss-feeds-e8aaebc3-a0a7-40cd-9e10-88f9c1e74b97 https://support.office.com/en-us/article/what-are-rss-feeds-...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- netghost 8y agoThe silver lining is that no built in support is better than poor builtin support as it opens the doors to interesting add-ons filling that need. That said, I would love if Firefox had an excellent RSS experience, but frankly it was always a confusing afterthought.
- Kalium 8y ago> As one commentator said in the linked article: protocols are better than platforms. You're right! For users this is absolutely true. Yet, almost all the companies that you might think of as potentially interested in RSS are platforms. You cannot sell ads in a protocol. This is the core of why Twitter has replaced RSS. RSS is better for users, but Twitter is better for publishers and platforms. So users wind up following content.
- rsscircus 8y agoSorry to split hairs here but RSS is not a protocol but a syndication format: http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification Atom is also a format but have proposed a publication protocol : https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5023 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5023
- Kalium 8y agoYou're completely correct! Is it perhaps possible that in this particular case, the difference you so wisely point to between a format and a protocol is possessed of a great and bountiful opportunity to be relevant? The discussion at hand is between "protocols" and "platforms", which might otherwise be cast as "standards" and "products". Again, you're completely correct. It might just be worth considering that in some cases, a distinction without difference can be of limited value to a discussion where it is at best tangential.