Rss: not using it is just stupid

I was speaking with one of my best friends who is quite technical currently taking Comp-SCI and while I was showing him my FreshRSS instance on my Rasberry Pi, he noted that nobody else uses RSS besides me. Well let’s get started with why you are stupid for not using an RSS reader.

You probably are already using it

First off, most people are probably using RSS without realizing it as podcasts use RSS. So what the actual hell is RSS? To quote an article from rss.com:

“RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It refers to files easily read by a computer called XML files that automatically update information. This information is fetched by a user’s RSS feed reader that converts the files and the latest updates from websites into an easy to read format. An RSS feed takes the headlines, summaries, and update notices, and then links back to articles on your favorite website’s page. This content is **distributed in real time**, so that the top results on the RSS feed are always the latest published content for a website.”

What does that mean in English? You have one place to get all the websites you visit in a nice readable format without ads. It gets auto updated as new articles get written.

Advantages of RSS

• Rock solid – It just fucking works
• Lets you read without ads
• The ability to power-use it as much or as little as you want, whether selfhosting or just making a basic account with Feedly or Inoreader
• Offline reading abilities

Advantages of going to websites themselves

• Get to waste time while pretending to work (Average actual work time done by an office worker stats)
• Get to see ads that you want to see
• Get really cool autoplay videos on every news site on earth
• Get to see some stunning web design that you need in your life when your just trying to read

Get started with RSS for articles

• Check out Feedly and Inoreader they both have free accounts, are super easy to use, and should offer enough free feeds (websites) for the non-power user
• I can give you an account on my FreshRSS instance just reach out
• Run your own FreshRSS or Miniflux account

My Setup

My setup for reading is FreshRSS instance on my Rasberry Pi. I read articles on my phone using Focus Reader hooked into said instance. Save articles I want to read later to Instapaper. Read articles later on my Kindle sent from Instapaper. Ideally I would like to get a Android E-Reader and use Focus Reader directly, but I sadly don’t have the money. Feel free to donate lol.

Advanced RSS Uses

• Create your own Youtube subscription with all the videos being shown
• For Twitter, see nitter instances
• Reddit has an RSS feed for almost any page. Just add .rss at the end of the URL (but before the first ? symbol)
• Tumblr is one of the sites with best RSS support. Just add “/rss” after the Tumblr domain

For the sites that don’t offer a native feed, you can try to look in these other sites:

• https://discovery.thirdplace.no
• https://openrss.org
• https://docs.rsshub.app/en

Will you stop wasting your time?

So are you gonna stop wasting your time jumping from site to site and start using a fundamental internet technology that’s 25 years old? I know most of you won’t. But if you do please let me know via comments or the contact form.

This is day 21 of #100DaysToOffload