4 ms·

Ask HN: Where do you find your RSS sites?

12 points by pipeline_peak 4y ago

I’ve been wanting to use RSS for quite a while, but what always seems to hit me is how vast and unorganized the web has become. Google search is an absolute joke, how do you find sites to follow?

EddieDante 4y ago
I've been trying to figure this out myself, because as you pointed out Google is worse than useless.
- pipeline_peak 4y ago
  I’m not crazy about Feedly but they seem to have a nice library of sites split into categories further than just news. So my current “solution” is to find whatever it is and paste it into my preferred reader.
ggeorgovassilis 4y ago
Mostly hacker news. When I like a post, I subscribe to the site's feed. Takes a while to build a good index but it's worth it.
- beardyw 4y ago
  +1 though I often unsubscribe, the best stick around
- kevincox 4y ago
  Exactly this. I subscribe fairly readily whenever I find myself reading something interesting on the web but also unsubscribe quickly if I'm not enjoying the content after a few posts.
hammyhavoc 4y ago
The assumption is that every CMS provides a feed on `/feed`, and with a good chunk of the web running on WordPress, which has RSS in the OOBE, you'll find plenty. For anything that doesn't, I run a scraper to turn its content into an RSS feed that I'll get.
- warrenm 4y ago
  The bigger question, in my mind, though, is why some sites don't offer RSS/Atom syndication (or why some choose to disable it)
- kevincox 4y ago
  To make finding the feed easier you can use browser extensions that do the RSS auto-discovery protocol. This will use metadata in the website to find the feed with no guessing.
- warrenm 4y ago
  Whatever doesn't have a /feed option, I'll pop the page source and do a quick search for "rss" or "atom" or "index.xml"
- soniman 4y ago
  Why doesn't a site like Feedly immediately convert a blog or podcast url into a feed if I paste it? Or does that feature exist? It's strange that the intermediate process of finding the feed is necessary. I use getrssfeed com
stevekemp 4y ago
Honestly random discovery, sometimes sites that appear here, sometimes things that I come across on other sites. I remember a while back I searched google for "int03", "cp/m retro bdos" and found a bunch of old-school low-level blogs, to which I subscribed. But other sites seem to be very well-known and get presented on a few different sites. For example this one is an absolute gem, even though I'm not a gamer: https://www.filfre.net/ https://www.filfre.net/
jslakro 4y ago
Probably the current web is missing of something like DMOZ
warrenm 4y ago
I feel like this should be a pinned question on HN ... seems like it gets asked every couple days :)
warrenm 4y ago
I've been adding to mine over the years at https://datente.com/main.feeds https://datente.com/main.feeds (the list that shows up when you load https://datente.com https://datente.com)

12 points by pipeline_peak 4y ago

I’ve been wanting to use RSS for quite a while, but what always seems to hit me is how vast and unorganized the web has become. Google search is an absolute joke, how do you find sites to follow?

EddieDante 4y ago

I've been trying to figure this out myself, because as you pointed out Google is worse than useless.

pipeline_peak 4y ago
I’m not crazy about Feedly but they seem to have a nice library of sites split into categories further than just news. So my current “solution” is to find whatever it is and paste it into my preferred reader.

ggeorgovassilis 4y ago

Mostly hacker news. When I like a post, I subscribe to the site's feed. Takes a while to build a good index but it's worth it.

beardyw 4y ago
+1 though I often unsubscribe, the best stick around
kevincox 4y ago
Exactly this. I subscribe fairly readily whenever I find myself reading something interesting on the web but also unsubscribe quickly if I'm not enjoying the content after a few posts.

hammyhavoc 4y ago

The assumption is that every CMS provides a feed on `/feed`, and with a good chunk of the web running on WordPress, which has RSS in the OOBE, you'll find plenty. For anything that doesn't, I run a scraper to turn its content into an RSS feed that I'll get.

warrenm 4y ago
The bigger question, in my mind, though, is why some sites don't offer RSS/Atom syndication (or why some choose to disable it)
kevincox 4y ago
To make finding the feed easier you can use browser extensions that do the RSS auto-discovery protocol. This will use metadata in the website to find the feed with no guessing.
warrenm 4y ago
Whatever doesn't have a /feed option, I'll pop the page source and do a quick search for "rss" or "atom" or "index.xml"
soniman 4y ago
Why doesn't a site like Feedly immediately convert a blog or podcast url into a feed if I paste it? Or does that feature exist? It's strange that the intermediate process of finding the feed is necessary. I use getrssfeed com

stevekemp 4y ago

Honestly random discovery, sometimes sites that appear here, sometimes things that I come across on other sites. I remember a while back I searched google for "int03", "cp/m retro bdos" and found a bunch of old-school low-level blogs, to which I subscribed. But other sites seem to be very well-known and get presented on a few different sites. For example this one is an absolute gem, even though I'm not a gamer: https://www.filfre.net/ https://www.filfre.net/

jslakro 4y ago

Probably the current web is missing of something like DMOZ

warrenm 4y ago

I feel like this should be a pinned question on HN ... seems like it gets asked every couple days :)

warrenm 4y ago

I've been adding to mine over the years at https://datente.com/main.feeds https://datente.com/main.feeds (the list that shows up when you load https://datente.com https://datente.com)