Perhaps you have clicked on one out of curiosity, only to be faced with a barrage of angle brackets and undecipherable code, seemingly designed to scare the heck out of anyone less than familiar with the intricacies of this new fangled technology creeping across the web.

But once you click on that button - what do you do then?

After clicking the button, you will see all that code - if you have ever viewed the source code to a web page, it looks a little similar.

RSS is just another language of the web, but you can actually completely ignore the code itself, just like you can ignore the source code behind web pages that you visit - you are only interested in the end product that the code is designed to produce for you, the end user.

In the case of RSS, that end product is up-to-date news on the topics you are interested in.

For example, if you want to keep up to date with the latest information on financial markets, or growing marigolds, or what's new on your favorite website or blog, and you see a one of those feed buttons on that particular topic, you can 'subscribe' to it and receive messages via the feed, each time the publisher of the feed updates it.

This technology is really powerful. If you signed up to receive regular newsletters via email from various websites, you could subscribe to their RSS feeds instead, if they offer them, and have all those feeds grouped on one page. Not the content of each newsletter, just their newest headlines so you can at a glance see what's new and decide what you want to read by clicking on the linkable headlines. What a concept to end email clutter!

So how do you 'subscribe' to an RSS feed? The important bit is what is in the browser address (or location) bar after clicking the feed button, i.e. the part at the top of your browser window that usually starts with 'http://...' and tells you the web address of the page you are visiting.

You need to copy that address - it's that address that you need to 'plug' into what is generally known as a 'news reader'.

News readers allow you to keep updated with the feeds that you are subscribed to. There are several to choose from - some involve downloading some software, some involve visiting a web site, some are free, and some require you to pay.

Once you have chosen a particular news reader, you simply take that address that you have copied, and, following the instructions provided with the news reader, simply paste it in - the reader will take care of the rest, and keep you updated with your new feed. Once you have done it once, you will see just how simple it really is.

Below are 15 different news readers you can choose from, in approximate order of recommendation under each category:

Browser-Based:
- My Yahoo - beta
- BlogLines
- AmphetaDesk
- NewsIsFree

Software For Windows:
- NewsGator - integrates into Microsoft Outlook
- FeedDemon
- Awasu
- SharpReader
- FeedReader
- NewsWatcher
- NewsRanker - claims to learn from your news reading to prioritize the feed items you receive.
- Novobot - extracts headlines from feeds, and also web sites that you are interested in.
- Radio Userland - blogging tool with an integrated news aggregator.

Software For Mac:
- NetNewsWire

Software For Linux:
- Straw for GNOME
- RSS2email - Python scrïpt that sends you new messages from your feeds via email.

It's useful to spend a few minutes researching some appropriate choices - once you've decided on one that you believe to be suitable, you can start picking up new feeds straight away. It's Really So Simple.

[Back to top]