 For anyone looking to adjust their media diet, now’s a great time to consider escaping The Algorithms with RSS. Here are some of the blogs, newsletters, and independent news sites I follow: https://www.mollywhite.net/blogroll/ For feed readers, I use Inoreader, but there are many other good options. 97 comments
@molly0xfff I wish I understood this. My gmail keeps filling up. I don't even know what an RSS feed is. Do you have to download an app? @WINGS_radio there are RSS apps, or you can also use a web-based one. here's a good guide: https://derekkedziora.com/blog/rss-guide  @WINGS_radio @molly0xfff  @molly0xfff Cory Doctorow got me fired up about RSS not too long ago. It does make a lot of sense and it certainly ticks all the boxes in terms of media independence. @almad inoreader does it, but it’s a paid feature. there are also free services like https://kill-the-newsletter.com/ @almad @molly0xfff I've seen some recommendations from @hynek to Omnivore refugees: @almad @molly0xfff newsblur provides and email address to forward newsletters to, then provides them like an rss feed. I'm a pretty happy with newsblur in general. @swacknificent @mostlywater @molly0xfff Out of curiositt: my problem is that I do _not_ want to have RSS as a reader; I am using it to triage what I want to read, and send it to my “read it later” app, because I want a single longread source and I am adding a bunch of things (like papers) manually…and last time I checked, Newsblur did not integrate well, and there wasn’t a good way to add ad hoc reads. Has either of those been fixed?  most Mastodon and Reddit pages can be turn into feeds by just adding `.rss` to the end of the url, for Lemmy add `.xml` instead  @molly0xfff I only wish discovering plain, non-propeietary RSS feed URLs wasn't so painful for most podcasts and sites... Vivaldi fortunately shows an RSS feed icon on pages with discoverable feeds! Firefox removed that feature long ago @axleyjc Inoreader has a browser extension that sniffs them out. A lot of readers also have a place where you can pop in the site URL and it’ll find the feed @molly0xfff @axleyjc Another option is the "RSS Preview" extension which puts an RSS button in the #firefox address bar https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/rsspreview/ @molly0xfff or convert email to RSS via a third party, for example https://notifier.in/ ("free integrations" require neither login nor payment) @molly0xfff almost all Mastodon servers allow by default for someone to follow all your feed by simply entering a URL into your RSS feeder in the form https://<servername>/<username>.RSS There are only a few Hometown servers which give you an option to shut off the RSS feed. Try https://hachyderm.io/@molly0xfff.rss in your reader to see what I mean.   @molly0xfff And if your reader doesn't support the email feature, there's also Kill The Newsletter which lets you convert email newsletters into an RSS feed. Super handy :) https://kill-the-newsletter.com/ (It's also open source, which I like :) @molly0xfff Yes! I use Inoreader, as well, and for the same reasons. I especially prefer RSS to email newsletters as I am more likely to read what in my feed as opposed to what’s in my Inbox. Let’s also not forget that podcasts are also delivered via RSS reader, so you’re not restricted to just print sources when you subscribe to RSS feeds. @kevingamin @molly0xfff You probably know, but for others who don’t: Inoreader will let you create an email address for you to subscribe to newsletters and get them directly in your feeds. That feature is one of the reasons I switched to it recently over other RSS options. @kevingamin @molly0xfff I am using Fiery Reader, one particularly usefull feature is that one can (feed by feed) choose between the RSS text or a fully rendered webview, which suits some feeds better. Probably Apple only, but both iOS/iPadOS and macos is supported. @kevingamin @molly0xfff I am using the new Feeder app, it's really nice. It's GPLv3 FLOSS, just works, merges feeds, requires no account, can display the articles in browser through one click. I highly recommend for these reasons https://github.com/spacecowboy/feeder @kevingamin @molly0xfff You can also get YouTube channels: To get the Channel ID, go to a YouTube channel page, right click, view source, look a link like: https:// www.youtube.com/channel/UCDn-QZtwFrmb9T9o5YYsPEQ Replace the <CHANNEL ID> above with the UCDn-.... at the end. eg: @kevingamin @molly0xfff sorry to go on a tangent, it stirred a thought in me - what are the craziest things transmitted by rss? @kevingamin @molly0xfff Yesssss, you can have my RSS feeds when you pry them from my cold dead hands! @kevingamin @molly0xfff @nekodojo @kevingamin @molly0xfff I use inoreader for RSS, but don't really spend much time on it. I'm more likely to see things that show up here in mastodon. Thanks for posting this! @molly0xfff I'm mostly into fandoms and fanart. Zack Snyder and Alita Battle Angel fan groups etc. And sadly they are %99 still on Twitter 😔 @molly0xfff Thank you for this excellent list. When I followed the "Erin Kissane’s internet website lol" link, I saw a big notice: "My new microstudio is over at wreckage/salvage. This site collects my work spring 2022–fall 2024." https://www.wrecka.ge/ exists and has a feed, yay. @molly0xfff Oh yes! I'm using minflux so far for it. I'll look at inoreader ^^ So good to see this notion of blogroll, which puts back the notion of curation of sites \o/ @molly0xfff I quite enjoy FreshRSS as a self-hosted option to manage all of my feeds, which I can then connect to from a variety of mobile readers or through a browser directly. I recommend checking it out!  @molly0xfff : As you seem to follow everything through RSS (like I do), I wonder how you draw the line between a "blog" and a "newsletter"? Also, as the medium always impacts the message, I’m curious to know if you see any difference in terms of content/tone between blogs and newsletters. Signed: A 20 years of blogging veteran @ploum it’s a very fuzzy line, and i have some newsletters on my blogroll. mostly just comes down to vibes and cadence @molly0xfff : thanks for the clarification. I will continue to talk about "blogs" and try to not bother too much then ;-) (some are calling my own blogs a "newsletter" and it disturbs me more than it should) personally, I go more by “delivery method”: @cerement @molly0xfff : most blog allow you to subscribe by email. Most newsletters have an history and a RSS feed, which blurs the line. @molly0xfff Another option is to use the RSS parrot service @birb to use mastodon as a feed reader.  @molly0xfff kill-the-newsletter.com will generate a feed for every newsletter. Super handy. No alliliation, just a happy user. @molly0xfff I love that you still have a blogroll! I had one back in the RSS heyday and appreciated others to discover other great content. I'll be reviving a blogroll on my blog! Do you use any automation to generate the blogroll list from feed subscriptions?  @molly0xfff I jumped about a month ago. Deleted all appropriate apps including Npr. I appreciate a good list. Thank you. @molly0xfff Do you know if the rss reader apps collect and monetize your information (feeds followed, stories read, etc.)? It looks like most of them don’t “algorithmize” the feed unless you want them to (and it seems to be more under your control). @chriswei i imagine it varies depending on the app. any reader that tries to recommend feeds to you is collecting *some* data, but you’d have to check the privacy policy to see what they do with it. mine does try to recommend feeds, but doesn’t sell the data. @chriswei there are also a lot of self-hosted options for RSS readers, so that’s a solid option for someone worried about tracking  @molly0xfff amazing list, thanks 🙇 - would be great if you could put their mastodon handles as well <3 Good point about being selective and avoiding the firehose. Especially if your reading time is limited. @SpaceLifeForm yeah — I've built up this list of feeds over years and so I'm used to the volume and pretty good at skimming through it, but it's a lot to just suddenly jack in to 😅 @molly0xfff With you on that. I so much wish RSS becomes as popular as it was in the past—such a needed way to reclaim control over what we consume online, without the hegemony of the social graph and manipulative feeds    @molly0xfff We should encourage people to host a /blogroll.xml at their site's root so it might grow into an emergent network. Just threw one up on my site, the last link in the intro: https://www.dbreunig.com @molly0xfff do you have strong thoughts on RSS vs Atom? Most folks won’t and shouldn’t care, but curious if there are hidden considerations for publishing a feed these days. @molly0xfff Thanks for sharing! I can't promote RSS enough myself, if only to help prevent others from going mad by having to agree to hundreds & hundred of advertisement tracking agreements! For what its worth (if anyone was looking): Feeder for mobile, NewsFlash for Linux GUI and Newsboat for Linux terminal. Oh & there is the browser 'reader view' option too, to strip out all the noise for sites that you don't necessarily want to add to your RSS reader. A tip I found tooted here a while ago 😊 @molly0xfff @molly0xfff I'm currently using Capy Reader, which I really like so far. A bit more than FocusReader, anyway.  @molly0xfff I've been a big fan of using RSS and it's how I get my snippets of news around the web. @molly0xfff Pfff, very long list. I don’t have time to follow/read them all. I’ll look at it anyway to find something interesting 😉 I use @newsexplorer https://betamagic.nl/support/newsexplorer/help.html  Molly, I subscribed to your OPML list at feedland.org. This means it reads all the feeds in your list, and it's dynamic, so if you add or remove a feed from the list, it will subscribe or unsubscribe. Here's the page where all the fees are listed. https://feedland.org/?subscriptionlist=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mollywhite.net%2Fblogs.opml.xml And a timeline of new posts to all the feeds in your OPML list. https://feedland.org/?readinglistnews=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mollywhite.net%2Fblogs.opml.xml  @davew @molly0xfff Hey Dave! Just discovered Feedland. Dumb question for sure, but Can .com users interact with .org users and things? @molly0xfff I appreciate the suggestion! I've been struggling to find one I like after the Feedly fiasco. I've been using Feeder. It's *ok*. It functions, but missing some of the ui polish @molly0xfff One option for feed reading if'n you want everything in one place is to join a #friendica instance, RSS feeds can be added like any other Fediverse friend, allowing you to see the posts in your timeline
@molly0xfff I just added these to Feeder. I love RSS because it's often the only way that I have something to read at work. For some reason there's pretty much no cell service there. @molly0xfff Thanks for this, been meaning to get back to rss for a while now, this was the lick I needed.#rss #escapethenoise @molly0xfff hey Moly I am using FreshRSS over here. It is a game changer. No external dependencies to Google or any other service providers.  @molly0xfff @jelloeater @molly0xfff It's a great thread indeed! We are happy to see so many people discovering and enjoying Inoreader! 🙌   @molly0xfff with all due respect, I don't think it's ever a good idea to ONLY follow RSS. For one thing, RSS is generally not used by #RestOfWorld #independent #journalist s. And second, it disincentivizes discovering new sources. The only time I think it is worth using RSS for me is if I have someone I like following that I would like to always hear amidst the current chaotic online discourse. But I will contest the idea that RSS is 'fair' in 2024. Different times, different rhymes. |
Gregory's Server
This is also a great way to follow newsletters without your email inbox getting jammed up. I mostly subscribe to newsletters, turn the emails off, and then read them in my feed reader.
Most newsletters provide an RSS feed, or there are some RSS readers that will let you send emails to a special email address so they show up in your feed.
#RSS #IndependentMedia #blogging