What is RSS?
Many websites have links labeled "XML" or "RSS" or "Atom". These are all ways of saying that you can find out about updates to that site’ content without having to visit the site in your web browser. This feature is referred to as "syndication," "aggregation," or "web feeds;" sometimes it's just called subscribing. We use an orange icon like this: rss to indicate where a feed is available on this site.
Getting Started
We've provided a little bit of information here on how you can get easily get started reading feeds for free.
What Do I Need?
Just like when you want to watch a video clip or listen to music on the web, you need a "player" of some kind to subscribe to feeds. Most of these tools are free, and there are many to choose from, so you can find the one that best suits you.
The type of "player" for a feed is called a feed reader. This tool lets you subscribe to any feeds you want, checks automatically to see when they're updated, and then displays the updates for you as they arrive.
Feed readers can run on your computer or you can sign up to use a feed-reader that runs on the web. If you use one of the web-based readers, you can access your feeds from anywhere you go, just by signing into the website that manages your feeds. If you use a feed reading program that installs on your computer, your feeds can be stored for you even if you're not connected to the Internet.
What Feed Reader Should I Use?
Here's a list some of the most popular tools:
Web-based, Free Services
On Your Computer
- Mozilla Firefox
- Internet Explorer 7
- Safari
- FeedDemon
- NewsGator for Microsoft Outlook
- NetNewsWire for Mac OS X
Subscribing to Feeds
Once you've got a tool to read feeds, look for that orange button on our site, and add the feeds that you want to keep updated on.