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Is anyone still using feeds out there? Don't get me wrong, I've loved to follow blogs through a feed reader (way better than a freaking email newsletter), but

by talles 3y ago

Is anyone still using feeds out there? Don't get me wrong, I've loved to follow blogs through a feed reader (way better than a freaking email newsletter), but I pretty much stopped because a lot of the stuff I was reading started dropping support for it.

xyzsparetimexyz 3y ago
I am, using rss-bridge (https://github.com/RSS-Bridge/rss-bridge https://github.com/RSS-Bridge/rss-bridge) to access feeds on other services (mostly twitter).
jsbisviewtiful 3y ago
I mainly used RSS feeds at this point. The Reddit community has become pretty toxic so decided to move away from it and just follow websites I like and trust via RSS.
- hammyhavoc 3y ago
  Depends on the sub. Some are definitely toxic cesspools, others are very friendly and cool. I've tried to quit Reddit several times, but unfortunately there's some good conversation and important troubleshooting that happens there of all places. I think it'd be nice if certain subs could disable the karma system as they degenerate into posting pictures of what arrived in the mail today instead of discussing anything meaningful.
  - Semaphor 3y ago
    > Depends on the sub. It depends on the size, and your opinions. I don’t like movies and enjoyed the Wheel of Time TV show, people like me are not wanted in /r/fantasy. But it is a big subreddit (3 million), and that just comes with toxicity. I’d say anything with over 100k subs (probably even less) will have toxicity, it’s just that it tends to stay hidden until someone says the wrong thing (/r/selfhosted with 250k had some crazy drama a while ago).
- ChrisRR 3y ago
  Depends on the sub. If someone ever asks about joining reddit my first recommendation is to unsub from all the defaults. That's where most of the idiocy of the general public is
- timbit42 3y ago
  Reddit supports RSS by appending .rss to a sub-reddit's URL: eg. https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/.rss https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/.rss
j3s 3y ago
i've never run across a blog that i've wanted to follow that doesn't have an rss/atom feed - they are often hidden / in unexpected places though - these days i just ctrl+u (view source in firefox) and ctrl+f for "rss" or "atom" and 99% of the time, there's a hit.
- Semaphor 3y ago
  > i've never run across a blog that i've wanted to follow that doesn't have an rss/atom feed One time only for me. Don’t even remember the site as I couldn’t follow it ;) > these days i just ctrl+u (view source in firefox) and ctrl+f for "rss" or "atom" and 99% of the time, there's a hit. I tend to not even do that much, the vast majority of sites have their feeds properly marked up, so pasting the base URL into my reader gives me a list of available feeds.
- kevincox 3y ago
  If you are getting hits for this you are probably finding the auto-discovery <link> tag. You can get browser extensions that find this automatically and put up an icon that you can click to direct you to your favourite reader. Most readers also support just pasting the article URL and it will find the feed for you.
drpixie 3y ago
Absolutely, and almost everything I want to follow has a feed. I run a tiny (Raspberry pi 3) miniflux instance as a web-based reader and have been very happy so far.
Vrondi 3y ago
If a site doesn't have a feed, and nobody else third-party generates a feed for it, then sometimes I just don't follow that site much. It depends. If you use a competent rss reader like FreshRSS then you can alternatively do web scraping even if there isn't an rss feed per se, if the site seems worth that much effort. Many aren't worth that effort.
mock-possum 3y ago
What are you using instead of feeds??
rtpg 3y ago
what site do you not have a feed for? There are feeds for basically everything short of like... twitter.
- timbit42 3y ago
  eBay dropped RSS a year or so ago. It was handy for getting Buy It Now items before anyone else even got their daily email search results. Reuters had RSS but dropped it a few years ago. There are a few news sites I'd like to have RSS but don't.
kryptiskt 3y ago
I've found nothing better for keeping track of infrequently updated blogs. You can follow a firehose of news on Twitter as missing a story or ten isn't a big deal. But things that are updated every six months doesn't work at all with social media if you're looking at the feed occasionally.
082349872349872 3y ago
I even read HN via RSS: https://hnrss.org/newest?count=100 https://hnrss.org/newest?count=100
- creshal 3y ago
  That's how I found this post. RSS is still far too useful.
rkangel 3y ago
Webcomics are still fairly good at it. I don't really understand how else I would go about following a webcomic that has plot (i.e. I want to read each episode exactly once, in order).
knorker 3y ago
How else do you follow blogs, or follow webcomics? I don't think I've ever seen a blog or webcomic that doesn't support RSS. If I ever do, then "oh, this author is interesting, but I guess I will never in my life see anything they do again. That's a shame". I'm not going to poll someone's blog on the off chance that they posted something.
ChrisRR 3y ago
I used to keep up to date with everything via google reader (especially as it meant I could get round work internet blocks) but when that went down, i switched to Feedly. But then it just became overload, it was just too much to keep up to date with every blog I found interesting and every news site kept filling their site with ever more blog pieces in the name of "content" I just gave up. It's much easier to let reddit subs sort the wheat from the chaff and read them instead.

by talles 3y ago

xyzsparetimexyz 3y ago

I am, using rss-bridge (https://github.com/RSS-Bridge/rss-bridge https://github.com/RSS-Bridge/rss-bridge) to access feeds on other services (mostly twitter).

jsbisviewtiful 3y ago

I mainly used RSS feeds at this point. The Reddit community has become pretty toxic so decided to move away from it and just follow websites I like and trust via RSS.

hammyhavoc 3y ago
Depends on the sub. Some are definitely toxic cesspools, others are very friendly and cool. I've tried to quit Reddit several times, but unfortunately there's some good conversation and important troubleshooting that happens there of all places. I think it'd be nice if certain subs could disable the karma system as they degenerate into posting pictures of what arrived in the mail today instead of discussing anything meaningful.
- Semaphor 3y ago
  > Depends on the sub. It depends on the size, and your opinions. I don’t like movies and enjoyed the Wheel of Time TV show, people like me are not wanted in /r/fantasy. But it is a big subreddit (3 million), and that just comes with toxicity. I’d say anything with over 100k subs (probably even less) will have toxicity, it’s just that it tends to stay hidden until someone says the wrong thing (/r/selfhosted with 250k had some crazy drama a while ago).
ChrisRR 3y ago
Depends on the sub. If someone ever asks about joining reddit my first recommendation is to unsub from all the defaults. That's where most of the idiocy of the general public is
timbit42 3y ago
Reddit supports RSS by appending .rss to a sub-reddit's URL: eg. https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/.rss https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/.rss

j3s 3y ago

i've never run across a blog that i've wanted to follow that doesn't have an rss/atom feed - they are often hidden / in unexpected places though - these days i just ctrl+u (view source in firefox) and ctrl+f for "rss" or "atom" and 99% of the time, there's a hit.

Semaphor 3y ago
> i've never run across a blog that i've wanted to follow that doesn't have an rss/atom feed One time only for me. Don’t even remember the site as I couldn’t follow it ;) > these days i just ctrl+u (view source in firefox) and ctrl+f for "rss" or "atom" and 99% of the time, there's a hit. I tend to not even do that much, the vast majority of sites have their feeds properly marked up, so pasting the base URL into my reader gives me a list of available feeds.
kevincox 3y ago
If you are getting hits for this you are probably finding the auto-discovery <link> tag. You can get browser extensions that find this automatically and put up an icon that you can click to direct you to your favourite reader. Most readers also support just pasting the article URL and it will find the feed for you.

drpixie 3y ago

Absolutely, and almost everything I want to follow has a feed. I run a tiny (Raspberry pi 3) miniflux instance as a web-based reader and have been very happy so far.

Vrondi 3y ago

If a site doesn't have a feed, and nobody else third-party generates a feed for it, then sometimes I just don't follow that site much. It depends. If you use a competent rss reader like FreshRSS then you can alternatively do web scraping even if there isn't an rss feed per se, if the site seems worth that much effort. Many aren't worth that effort.

mock-possum 3y ago

What are you using instead of feeds??

rtpg 3y ago

what site do you not have a feed for? There are feeds for basically everything short of like... twitter.

timbit42 3y ago
eBay dropped RSS a year or so ago. It was handy for getting Buy It Now items before anyone else even got their daily email search results. Reuters had RSS but dropped it a few years ago. There are a few news sites I'd like to have RSS but don't.

kryptiskt 3y ago

I've found nothing better for keeping track of infrequently updated blogs. You can follow a firehose of news on Twitter as missing a story or ten isn't a big deal. But things that are updated every six months doesn't work at all with social media if you're looking at the feed occasionally.

082349872349872 3y ago

I even read HN via RSS: https://hnrss.org/newest?count=100 https://hnrss.org/newest?count=100

creshal 3y ago
That's how I found this post. RSS is still far too useful.

rkangel 3y ago

Webcomics are still fairly good at it. I don't really understand how else I would go about following a webcomic that has plot (i.e. I want to read each episode exactly once, in order).

knorker 3y ago

How else do you follow blogs, or follow webcomics? I don't think I've ever seen a blog or webcomic that doesn't support RSS. If I ever do, then "oh, this author is interesting, but I guess I will never in my life see anything they do again. That's a shame". I'm not going to poll someone's blog on the off chance that they posted something.

ChrisRR 3y ago

I used to keep up to date with everything via google reader (especially as it meant I could get round work internet blocks) but when that went down, i switched to Feedly. But then it just became overload, it was just too much to keep up to date with every blog I found interesting and every news site kept filling their site with ever more blog pieces in the name of "content" I just gave up. It's much easier to let reddit subs sort the wheat from the chaff and read them instead.