Whatever the linguistic details, one of the main roles of RSS is to supply directly to you a steady stream of updates from a website. Every new article published on that site is served up in a list that can be interpreted by an RSS reader.

Unfortunately, RSS is no longer how most of us consume “content.” (Google famously killed its beloved Google Reader more than a decade ago.) It’s now the norm to check social media or the front pages of many different sites to see what’s new. But I think RSS still has a place in your life: Especially for those who don’t want to miss anything or have algorithms choosing what they read, it remains one of the best ways to navigate the internet. Here’s a primer on what RSS can (still!) do for you, and how to get started with it, even in this late era of online existence.

  • @jagoan
    link
    English
    9111 months ago

    Reddit and Twitter were my RSS reader replacement. But then they shot themselves in the foot. Mastodon is not there yet. Lemmy is almost there, but still missing the non techy communities.

    • @realitista
      link
      English
      2311 months ago

      Yes RSS came back strong in my life after Reddit and Twitter shit the bed.

    • kratoz29
      link
      fedilink
      English
      611 months ago

      Lemmy is almost there, but still missing the non techy communities

      Thank god, have you seen how the world is out there? Crazy shit /s

    • @webjukebox
      link
      English
      211 months ago

      Friendica has the RSS feature and it is compatible with most Activity Pub services.

    • Turun
      link
      fedilink
      English
      111 months ago

      I’m reading some /r/hfy stories. Since I no longer get notifications for reddit pm, I have replaced it with the RSS Feed for “posts by user xxx”. RSS also works like a subscription on royal roads, the alternative that a lot of writers switched to.

      Works perfectly well, I’m very happy with it.