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Really Simple Syndication (RSS)
Really Simple Syndication (or previously, RDF Site Summary) is a type of web feed commonly used by news outlets and blogs, as an alternative way for readers to subscribe to updates. The data in these feeds (title, author, post date, article contents) are stored as machine-readable XML.
Big Algorithm doesn't want you to know this, but RSS subscription software - known as news aggregators - can check these feeds for updates, and deliver them right to the user for free, all without ads, filter bubbles or tracking software getting in the way!
History
The first version of RSS was 0.90 and originally called RDF Site Summary. Developed by Netscape, it was based off an early working draft of Resource Description Framework, but ultimately took on an incompatible life of its own.
Eventually Netscape abandoned the project after releasing version 0.91. In this power vacuum, competing developers to released their own successors: One published RSS 1.0 and the other RSS 2.0, with the 2.0 spec being the most widely used today.
Another popular XML-based technology, Atom was developed a few years later to address some of the 'bugginess' in RSS, and is similar enough to be placed in the “RSS family.” Most aggregators support both RSS 1+2 & Atom feeds. For more information on the differences between RSS and Atom, read this detailed comparison.
Structure
One day, you may have something that you want people to be able to keep up with via feed readers & aggregators. It is really simple to do with both RSS & Atom, and most modern aggregators support both formats.
RSS 2.0
If you're familiar with HTML, RSS looks kinda similar. Any feed conforming to this format should be readable by any compliant aggregator:
- rss2example.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?> <rss version="2.0"> <channel> <title>RSS Title</title> <description>This is an example of an RSS feed</description> <link>http://www.example.com/main.html</link> <copyright>2020 Example.com All rights reserved</copyright> <language>en-us</language> <lastBuildDate>Mon, 11 Sep 2010 00:01:00 +0000</lastBuildDate> <pubDate>Sun, 11 Sep 2009 16:20:00 +0000</pubDate> <ttl>1800</ttl> <item> <title>Example Entry 1</title> <description>Here is some text containing an interesting description.</description> <link>http://www.example.com/blog/post/1</link> <pubDate>Sun, 6 Sep 2009 16:20:00 +0000</pubDate> </item> <item> <title>Example Entry 2</title> <description>Here is different text containing an interesting description, so you can see how this loops.</description> <link>http://www.example.com/blog/post/2</link> <pubDate>Sat, 5 Sep 2009 16:20:00 +0000</pubDate> </item> </channel> </rss>
This layout is very simple to understand: Every feed has a <channel> with its own metadata tags (such as <title>, <description>, <link>, etc). Entries, or posts, or updates, or whatever you want to call them, are represented by a list of items, and each <item> has tags for the title, description and link as well.
For more information on the available tags you can use, read the RSS 2.0 specification.
If you have a website, some software can automatically detect your RSS feed, if you embed the following tag in the <head> section of your HTML template:
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Name of Feed" href="https://domain.com/path/to/feed.xml">
Atom
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If you have a website, some software can automatically detect your Atom feed, if you embed the following tag in your <head> section:
<link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Name of Feed" href="https://domain.com/path/to/feed.xml">
RSS as a Field Utility
The value of RSS to AnonOps agents cannot be understated. As many sites have RSS (or Atom) feeds, you can centralize the updates of all your favorite sites, authors, streamers, developers, and whatever else, all in one place - saving the need of having to check a bunch of individual websites or even opening your browser.
However, RSS has security benefits as well. Because it is simple XML text, that means you don't have to worry about potentially dangerous remote media compromising your machine or tracking your movements. Datacenters, ISP's & web server operators can still see your address checked the feed, but it is otherwise much harder to fingerprint you.
In fact, those inclined to unplug will recognize other benefits of using aggregators as well - especially if beforehand they got their news via social media algorithms & corrupt platforms like Google. With direct subscription to RSS feeds, you will no more have to deal with “recommended” news, or AI arbitrarily censoring your feed.
Some aggregators (such as Newsboat) allow you to pipe these updates to other utilities. This lets you do really cool things like use yt-dlp to download Youtube videos right from your news reader and open them in a local media player, or track GitHub project commits and clone them into clean testing environments.
With RSS feeds and the right aggregation software, the sky is truly the limit with how to integrate it into your operations.
Application-Specific Instructions
To use any of these applications to subscribe to AMI's Recent Changes feed, point your feed reader to:
https://bestpoint.institute/feed.php
Newsboat (Linux, MacOS & BSD)
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WeeChat (Linux, MacOS & BSD)
The IRC client WeeChat has a plugin that allows you to subscribe to RSS feeds. Super useful if you want to keep subscriptions related to your IRC friends (their blogs or Youtube channels, perhaps) in the same place you chat with them. First, make sure plugin installation is enabled, then install the rssagg plugin:
/set script.scripts.download_enabled on /script install rssagg.pl
Have WeeChat monitor feeds with:
/rssagg add <feed_name> <feed_URL>
Pull up internal documentation:
/help rssagg
More WeeChat shortcuts can be found in the Configuring WeeChat guide.
Find this page online at: https://bestpoint.institute/tools/rss