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Firefox 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

by dguo 8y ago

Firefox 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 ago
Wow I never knew. I would have used it if I knew.
- y4mi 8y ago
  The "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 ago
      They 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 ago
        There are addons that restore RSS previews and improve on firefox' old feature.
  - kazinator 8y ago
    Though useless, I think that some RSS extensions were able to pull feeds from there.
  - pradn 8y ago
    It was an easy and simple way to get into RSS. I used to use it quite a bit. Just the effort of finding an RSS reader is enough to turn people off the service. Compare to Twitter, which exists on all platforms. I don't think we can underestimate the interface problem for RSS.
  - iamphilrae 8y ago
    I actually used it considerably for my news site bookmarks on my bookmarks bar. It was great for just catching up on the day’s headline. It’s a feature I sorely miss.
    - war1025 8y ago
      The Livemarks extension duplicates the feature pretty acceptably.
  - pard68 8y ago
    You are describing the majority of rss readers. Newsboat could be said to be a folder, with a file inside called urls. Sure it's actually more than that, but that's the part you interact with. So what's your point?
- pera 8y ago
  There is an add-on called Awesome RSS [1] that brings back the web feed icon to the address bar. It doesn't implement the "live bookmarks" feature though, but you can use some external reader such as Newsboat [2] which will also let you read the content of the articles. [1] - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/awesome-rss/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/awesome-rss/ [2] - https://newsboat.org/ https://newsboat.org/
  - dngray 8y ago
    I was looking at this the other day[0] I actually think Brief[1] might even be better than the RSS support that was in Firefox. I haven't tried it yet but I intend to. I use Thunderbird as well, and that has RSS support but to me that seems counter to my workflow. Typically I'll be on some site and want to subscribe, and then view in my browser. Doesn't really make sense to be in an email client. On my phone I use Flym[2] [0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/collections/4757633/feed-readers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/collections/4757633... [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/brief/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/brief/ [2] https://github.com/FredJul/Flym https://github.com/FredJul/Flym
    - dngray 8y ago
      I tried out Brief. It looks nice but there are a couple of problems: 1) There also doesn't seem to be a way to sort them by date or alphabetical order or domain.[0][1] 2) It seems like it should be possible to 'group' feeds, but I couldn't figure out how. 3) When Firefox updates certain things break I think as a result of this I will try out newsboat. I found this tutorial[2] that seems to explain it nicely. [0]: https://github.com/brief-rss/brief/issues/208 https://github.com/brief-rss/brief/issues/208 [1]: https://github.com/brief-rss/brief/issues/383 https://github.com/brief-rss/brief/issues/383 [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUFCRqs822w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUFCRqs822w
  - rsscircus 8y ago
    Awesome RSS is a great extension, and is compatible again with Firefox 64+ and now adds direct subscription feature to Feedly, Inoreader, NextCloud Reader and even Tiny Tiny RSS (or universal feed display. https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/awesome-rss/ https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/awesome-rss/ Another great new extension is Want My RSS because it's compatible with 10 RSS readers for direct subscribtion (you can add your own when you have a self-hosted reader for example). Feed detection and feed display is also great! https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/want-my-rss/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/want-my-rss/
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
salutonmundo 8y ago
Using debian stable, so I still have 60.6.1esr... not looking forward to this.
- cinquemb 8y ago
  Yeah, I didn't know this because I run a customized nightly I forked, so I'll be keen on keeping all the files relating to this feature when I eventually merge with the upstream nightly so I can still have my cake and eat it too.
1337shadow 8y ago
Why did Mozilla not propose a new version of RSS then ?
- gregknicholson 8y ago
  Perhaps it would harm the business model of their proprietary software, Pocket.
- rsscircus 8y ago
  I discuss it with one dev contributor of Mozilla and they say that they didn't want to loose time maintaining Live Bookmarks. And the Live Bookmarks was underused. RSS is no more a prioritary subject. The problem is that they don't only suppress Live Bookmarks, they suppress all the ability to manage (I mean detect and display) RSS feeds... and that's terrible!
OrgNet 8y ago
The decisions that Mozilla comes to when it comes to Firefox sometime puzzles me... but overall, Firefox is still my #1. It was probably more work to remove RSS then to keep it... but either way, it used to be my favorite way to find a page's RSS link (but I disabled Firefox' telemetry and similar reporting tools, so i blame myself a bit too)

by dguo 8y ago

ape4 8y ago

Wow I never knew. I would have used it if I knew.

y4mi 8y ago
The "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 ago
    They 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 ago
      There are addons that restore RSS previews and improve on firefox' old feature.
- kazinator 8y ago
  Though useless, I think that some RSS extensions were able to pull feeds from there.
- pradn 8y ago
  It was an easy and simple way to get into RSS. I used to use it quite a bit. Just the effort of finding an RSS reader is enough to turn people off the service. Compare to Twitter, which exists on all platforms. I don't think we can underestimate the interface problem for RSS.
- iamphilrae 8y ago
  I actually used it considerably for my news site bookmarks on my bookmarks bar. It was great for just catching up on the day’s headline. It’s a feature I sorely miss.
  - war1025 8y ago
    The Livemarks extension duplicates the feature pretty acceptably.
- pard68 8y ago
  You are describing the majority of rss readers. Newsboat could be said to be a folder, with a file inside called urls. Sure it's actually more than that, but that's the part you interact with. So what's your point?
pera 8y ago
There is an add-on called Awesome RSS [1] that brings back the web feed icon to the address bar. It doesn't implement the "live bookmarks" feature though, but you can use some external reader such as Newsboat [2] which will also let you read the content of the articles. [1] - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/awesome-rss/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/awesome-rss/ [2] - https://newsboat.org/ https://newsboat.org/
- dngray 8y ago
  I was looking at this the other day[0] I actually think Brief[1] might even be better than the RSS support that was in Firefox. I haven't tried it yet but I intend to. I use Thunderbird as well, and that has RSS support but to me that seems counter to my workflow. Typically I'll be on some site and want to subscribe, and then view in my browser. Doesn't really make sense to be in an email client. On my phone I use Flym[2] [0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/collections/4757633/feed-readers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/collections/4757633... [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/brief/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/brief/ [2] https://github.com/FredJul/Flym https://github.com/FredJul/Flym
  - dngray 8y ago
    I tried out Brief. It looks nice but there are a couple of problems: 1) There also doesn't seem to be a way to sort them by date or alphabetical order or domain.[0][1] 2) It seems like it should be possible to 'group' feeds, but I couldn't figure out how. 3) When Firefox updates certain things break I think as a result of this I will try out newsboat. I found this tutorial[2] that seems to explain it nicely. [0]: https://github.com/brief-rss/brief/issues/208 https://github.com/brief-rss/brief/issues/208 [1]: https://github.com/brief-rss/brief/issues/383 https://github.com/brief-rss/brief/issues/383 [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUFCRqs822w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUFCRqs822w
- rsscircus 8y ago
  Awesome RSS is a great extension, and is compatible again with Firefox 64+ and now adds direct subscription feature to Feedly, Inoreader, NextCloud Reader and even Tiny Tiny RSS (or universal feed display. https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/awesome-rss/ https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/awesome-rss/ Another great new extension is Want My RSS because it's compatible with 10 RSS readers for direct subscribtion (you can add your own when you have a self-hosted reader for example). Feed detection and feed display is also great! https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/want-my-rss/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/want-my-rss/

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

salutonmundo 8y ago

Using debian stable, so I still have 60.6.1esr... not looking forward to this.

cinquemb 8y ago
Yeah, I didn't know this because I run a customized nightly I forked, so I'll be keen on keeping all the files relating to this feature when I eventually merge with the upstream nightly so I can still have my cake and eat it too.

1337shadow 8y ago

Why did Mozilla not propose a new version of RSS then ?

gregknicholson 8y ago
Perhaps it would harm the business model of their proprietary software, Pocket.
rsscircus 8y ago
I discuss it with one dev contributor of Mozilla and they say that they didn't want to loose time maintaining Live Bookmarks. And the Live Bookmarks was underused. RSS is no more a prioritary subject. The problem is that they don't only suppress Live Bookmarks, they suppress all the ability to manage (I mean detect and display) RSS feeds... and that's terrible!

OrgNet 8y ago

The decisions that Mozilla comes to when it comes to Firefox sometime puzzles me... but overall, Firefox is still my #1. It was probably more work to remove RSS then to keep it... but either way, it used to be my favorite way to find a page's RSS link (but I disabled Firefox' telemetry and similar reporting tools, so i blame myself a bit too)