Skip to main content

RSS pleasantly surprised me

I've gotten to a point in my privacy journey where it's less about moving towards private options, and more about relaxing and having some fun with what I can do.

I put off messing around with RSS for a while. I simply didn't have a significant need for it. However, after finding no good options to monitor various Lemmy communities without logging in, I decided to try out an RSS reader.

I settled on Feeder as my RSS reader, despite a few missing features I would like. I added my first Lemmy community as a feed, to try it out. I was immediately surprised how well it worked.

I also added other feeds, such as Tails News, and I was happy with that. I could monitor all the communities I needed to.

Then, I noticed one day, there was an RSS button for my Lemmy inbox. This is where I was really pleased: I can view my notifications without the need to log in, all in the same place.

Lemmy and RSS are both incredible, and I truly believe RSS is the hidden backbone of the internet. I love it, and maybe you should give it a try too!

(Ahem P.S. if anyone has an RSS reader as good as Feeder for Android that fixes this issue, please let me know)


GitHub - spacecowboy/Feeder: Android RSS reader app

Android RSS reader app. Contribute to spacecowboy/Feeder development by creating an account on GitHub.
GitHub
in reply to The 8232 Project

abeorch
abeorch
• •
Maybe a dumb thought but I just realised if Lemmy does RSS maybe I could add Lemmy feeds to my Friendica account. ??
in reply to abeorch

checksout
checksout
• •
I got this post by rss so YES,
But do not friendica allow you to join community by Activity pub? (Benefit is you can reply directly from there)
in reply to The 8232 Project

adr1an
adr1an
• •

I've used 'KillTheNewsletter' a lot. And then it hit me. Most email clients have features I want for my feeds (filtering, auto-sorting into folders by keywords, etc.)

So far, only emacs (forgot extension name) and feedbro (firefox extension) have similar festures to these...

Hence, I'm yet to try it, but might create an account only for feeds. And then use rss2email (pypi)

Is anyone else using this tool? I'd love to hear it...

This entry was edited (3 days ago)
in reply to The 8232 Project

tisktisk
tisktisk
• •
It's a bit tricky to setup. Are there any relatively updated guides to help point out the best settings/tweaks? How do you go about which communities to include without getting overwhelmed? I also worry about creating too much of a self-enclosed echo-chamber with this aggregation tool approach, but maybe it's just my paranoia showing
in reply to The 8232 Project

Adda
Adda
• •
My only gripe with RSS is the usual dependency on a synchronization server (whether it is a 3rd party server or self-hosted). I have been searching for way too long for a local-first RSS application for both Linux and Android which would store the RSS feeds (as in, the downloaded posts) in a local folder that could be then synchronized between Linux and Android applications using Syncthing or similar. Sadly, still no results. Anyone know about something?
This entry was edited (3 days ago)
in reply to Adda

macattack
macattack
• •

It's audio-specific but I use Audiobookshelf's RSS feed

I have a local folder where I put downloaded youtube audio and the RSS feed updates automatically when new files are placed there. Then, I access it through Lissen or the official audiobookshelf app.


AudioBookshelf

Self-hosted audiobook and podcast server
www.audiobookshelf.org
in reply to macattack

Adda
Adda
• •
It is definitely worth looking at. I am working with mostly blog posts RSS feeds, but this might come useful one of these days, too. Thank you for the suggestion.
in reply to The 8232 Project

wiki_me
wiki_me
• •

I like RSS, i think it can improve the information diet people have by getting high quality content. kinda an alternative to more popular content (meaning possibly low effort) pushed to us using algorithms or just created to appeal to the masses because it is more economical.

It does have a UX problem, i think we need some open source project where you click on a button and it will show you the RSS address but also give you the option to set up RSS while it coaches you to do it in a way that is kinda pleasant and easy.

in reply to The 8232 Project

Salix
Salix
• •

I love RSS.

I run FreshRSS as my server via docker and connect to it via Read You on Android and NewsFlash on Linux

I also run RSS-Bridge in docker. It has been really useful as it can generate RSS feeds for many websites that don't natively have them.


GitHub - FreshRSS/FreshRSS: A free, self-hostable news aggregator…

A free, self-hostable news aggregator…. Contribute to FreshRSS/FreshRSS development by creating an account on GitHub.
GitHub
in reply to ComradeMiao

aeshna_cyanea
aeshna_cyanea
• •
The freshrss GitHub has a list of supported iphone apps and indicates some of them work offline. github.com/FreshRSS/FreshRSS?t…

GitHub - FreshRSS/FreshRSS: A free, self-hostable news aggregator…

A free, self-hostable news aggregator…. Contribute to FreshRSS/FreshRSS development by creating an account on GitHub.
GitHub
in reply to The 8232 Project

jagged_circle
jagged_circle
• •
Do you have a recommendation for a website that lets me subscribe to RSS feeds and display them publicly (without needing account or JavaScript to see the combined feed)?
⇧