Blogger discovers this cool thing called “RSS”.
I did this too recently. Highly recommend.
Protip: Youtube channels have RSS feeds, they’re just buried in the source of the page. Ctrl-U and then Ctrl-F title=“RSS”
You can also just drop the youtube channel link (ex. https://www.youtube.com/@LinusTechTips ) as well into most readers and it’ll sort it out for you, so you don’t even have to go digging.
It’s in order if you only use the subscriptions tab too
A couple weeks ago I did a poll and it turns out almost 25% of the people who “watch YT daily or almost daily” don’t know about the subscriptions tab.
It’s so weird, but explains so many people claiming to not see new uploads. They only use the home page and never the actual subscriptions
Interesting, whenever I see the home page videos my soul dies a little. Couldn’t handle that regularly
The home page is fine for me, it’s dialed pretty well into my tastes. I always click the don’t reccommend channel or video if I don’t like a recommendation.
The Trending tab, on the other hand… Yikes.
I guess to get actual value from these videos you will still need to visit youtube.com though, in the end giving them valuable data to analyze.
Yeah but the goal here is to escape the algorithm deciding what you consume
You can play YouTube videos in VLC player
If I try to watch over a tor exit node (using tor anonymization technology). It shows me this message. They really want to know my IP-Address?
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Maybe try one of the downloaders
I can recommend yt-dlp
I use RSS but as far as I’m concerned, Lemmy is better, because it is categorized and ranked.
lemmy also supports rss! your inbox can generate a rss feed. Also communities have feeds that update whenever someone posts on them. For example for c/technology sorted after active: https://lemmy.world/feeds/c/technology.xml?sort=Active
I use RSS for sites where I want to read every update. That typically means serial comics; dev-blogs of indie games; other infrequent blogs; and some infrequent youTube channels (I don’t visit youTube other than via my RSS feeds);
Whereas I use Lemmy and other sites for skimming and browsing, and discovering new things.
never stopped using rss/atom with ttrss 💪
For iOS, this one doesn’t collect any data. It’s pretty barebones, but also free. It nags you a bunch at first but eventually stopped
NetNewsWire is the iOS and macOS app for RSS. It has been around since RSS started out and is now open source.
It doesn’t have keyword filters or at least I can’t find them.
I never stopped using it. It’s a shame some sites don’t have an rss feed anymore though…
Some RSS readers have the ability to generate an RSS feed from a site if they don’t support it. Some sites don’t show they have an RSS feed but they actually do.
Some smaller news sites share RSS feeds or newsletters if you support them on patreon.
It’s 2004 again lol The good ol days.
RSS is back. Forums are back. It’s brilliant. Now I just need Musk and Zuck and Bezos to be no longer relevant to anybody’s lives.
The problem I run into is most news sites optimize for 2 things
- Getting on google
- Getting linked on Twitter or Reddit
So most sites have a fuck ton of noise and carpet bomb ads.
I’d love to go back to the RSS model but it’s hard finding sites worth reading again.
I really agree - I’ve stepped away from reading so much of what’s online because it’s all clickbaity junk with no substance. I’m not sure where to look for actual content to put in my reader. But I’m making forays.
On Firefox on Android there is a reader mode that gives you just the text and images. It’s the little icon next to the url. Sometimes you can bypass a paywall if you press it really quick before the page finishes loading.
Lemme clarify a bit. I love reader mode too and agree it cuts out a lot of cruft.
My point was that authors and articles spend less time trying to write an engaging article and more time trying to shove SEO keywords and questions into articles. It ruins the article and makes it something not worth reading.
Reader mode is great but if the substance isn’t there then it’s all for naught.
I use it quite often. Chills the eyes when reading. Standardized font(size) and design make this bearable.
This is why I legit built my own space news app , because my autistic brain can’t handle all the crap they’ve added to pages. I just need the text, and images. I don’t need links to other articles in the body of the article! I’m currently reading this article!! and stop citing your own articles as sources!
Find one or two sites you regularly like from your usual sources. Then when THOSE sources link to another source, FOLLOW that link. If that site has good content, add it to your list.
It doesn’t take long to build a solid RSS feed, just need to spend a little time curating it. The key is to pay attention to who is providing the info.
Don’t like the direction a site is going, remove it from your feed.
If you see that one source is commonly the original source for information, or reporting make sure you do what you can to support it. Do they have a patreon? Can you share it out to your other sources?
Also, make sure you’re not falling into a bubble, follow national and international news sources.
I’d love to take a look at what other people are following and what they like about it. My own followed are kind of random.
Maybe this is one of those Qs a simple web search can answer…
Really hoping I don’t dox myself with this…
I (tried to) remove all the local news sites, but this gives me a pretty decent overview of things I’m interested in, without being overwhelming. You should be able to find some local news sources, and add their LOCAL only feed, so you don’t get hammered with national and international news.
<outline text="ADHDinos" type="rss" xmlUrl="https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/adhdinos/rss?title_no=820817" htmlUrl="https://www.webtoons.com/en/canvas/adhdinos/list?title_no=820817" description="A webcomic about ADHD and the difficulties I've encountered through it. *No permission required for reposts*"/> <outline text="Humon Comics" type="rss" xmlUrl="http://feeds.feedburner.com/Humon-Comics" htmlUrl="http://humoncomics.com" description="The latest issues."/> <outline text="Order of the Stick" type="rss" xmlUrl="https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots.rss" htmlUrl="http://www.giantitp.com/Comics.html" description="Order of the Stick"/> <outline text="War and Peas" type="rss" xmlUrl="https://warandpeas.com/feed/" htmlUrl="https://warandpeas.com/" description="Funny Comics"/> <outline text="Wondermark" type="rss" xmlUrl="https://wondermark.com/feed/" htmlUrl="https://wondermark.com/" description="An Illustrated Jocularity."/> <outline text="XKCD" type="rss" xmlUrl="https://xkcd.com/atom.xml" htmlUrl="https://xkcd.com/"/> <outline text="AnandTech" type="rss" xmlUrl="https://www.anandtech.com/rss/" htmlUrl="https://www.anandtech.com" description="This channel features the latest computer hardware related articles."/> <outline text="Ars Technica - Logged In" type="rss" xmlUrl="https://arstechnica.com/feed/?t=d46cb9b3032ca6ca5789738f44a887d740740298" htmlUrl="https://arstechnica.com" description="Serving the Technologist since 1998. News, reviews, and analysis."/> <outline text="BleepingComputer" type="rss" xmlUrl="https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/feed/" htmlUrl="https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/" description="BleepingComputer - All Stories"/> <outline text="Bloody Disgusting!" type="rss" xmlUrl="http://feeds.feedburner.com/BloodyDisgusting" htmlUrl="https://bloody-disgusting.com/" description="Horror movie news, reviews, interviews, videos, podcasts and more"/> <outline text="Deeplinks" type="rss" xmlUrl="https://www.eff.org/rss/updates.xml" htmlUrl="https://www.eff.org/rss/updates.xml" description="EFF's Deeplinks Blog: Noteworthy news from around the internet"/> <outline text="iFixit" type="rss" xmlUrl="https://www.ifixit.com/News/rss" htmlUrl="https://valkyrie.ifixit.com" description="Fixing the world, one gizmo at a time."/> <outline text="Krebs on Security" type="rss" xmlUrl="https://krebsonsecurity.com/feed/" htmlUrl="https://krebsonsecurity.com" description="In-depth security news and investigation"/> <outline text="NPR Topics: News" type="rss" xmlUrl="https://feeds.npr.org/1001/rss.xml" htmlUrl="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1001" description="NPR news, audio, and podcasts. Coverage of breaking stories, national and world news, politics, business, science, technology, and extended coverage of major national and world events."/> <outline text="Schneier on Security" type="rss" xmlUrl="https://www.schneier.com/feed/atom/" htmlUrl="https://www.schneier.com"/> <outline text="Science & Health – FiveThirtyEight" type="rss" xmlUrl="https://fivethirtyeight.com/science/feed/" htmlUrl="https://fivethirtyeight.com" description="FiveThirtyEight uses statistical analysis — hard numbers — to tell compelling stories about elections, politics and American society."/> <outline text="The 19th" type="rss" xmlUrl="https://19thnews.org/feed/" htmlUrl="https://19thnews.org/" description="The 19th is an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting at the intersection of gender, politics and policy."/> <outline text="Universe Today" type="rss" xmlUrl="https://www.universetoday.com/feed/" htmlUrl="https://www.universetoday.com/" description="Space and astronomy news"/>
Omg thank you for sharing. I think you’re good re doxxing, the only one that looked iffy was that Ars Technica URL, and I did a thorough check and couldn’t find any PII or credentials leaking.
My own feed is pretty pathetic (had to reinstall OS and did back up the past 5 years):
<outline text="RSS" title="RSS" type="rss" xmlUrl="http://edunham.net/rss.html"/> <outline text="thefoolwithapen" title="thefoolwithapen" type="rss" xmlUrl="https://thefoolwithapen.com/index.xml" htmlUrl="https://thefoolwithapen.com/"/> <outline text="Wikipedia Atom feed" title="Wikipedia Atom feed" type="rss" xmlUrl="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ARecentChanges&%3Bfeed=atom" htmlUrl="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:RecentChanges"/> <outline text="Tech News weekly bulletin feed" title="Tech News weekly bulletin feed" type="rss" xmlUrl="https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/api.php?action=featuredfeed&%3Bfeed=technews&%3Bfeedformat=rss" htmlUrl="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Main_Page"/> <outline text="PedalPC" title="PedalPC" type="rss" xmlUrl="https://www.pedalpc.com/rss.xml" htmlUrl="https://www.pedalpc.com/"/>
I also don’ think I’m following Wikipedia correctly. I don’t think I’ve ever managed to figure it out :/
Thanks, I updated the Ars one to a generic feed. Shoulda caught that.
Yeah, is there some sort of directory or something? That’d be cool.
I recently rediscovered RSS with Read You on F-Droid (I enjoy it’s UI and bionic reading). I also found something on Github called Follow that I use on my desktop running CachyOS.
People should be rediscovering RSS. It’s news that you tailor to yourself and doesn’t come bundled with the “social” part of social media.
I was trying to find a solution to have all the news sources I care about in a single app. Then I remembered RSS and was able to do that very easily. I use self-hosted Miniflux and just use that as pwa when on my phone. Ridoculously lightweight and very awesome. I also setup Readeck (a Pocket alternative) where I push longer articles for when I’m up for reading more instead of just checking the latest news. I love it
I frankly hate those posts in which people tells me what I should do. Just write “Hey, look, this is cool!” and let me judge it.
Same. I’m guessing the clickbait algorithm favors the “should” phrasing, which is annoying.
Shot out to freshness, been using that for years! Self hosting it
FreshRSS for those playing along at home…
My local news sites block RSS because they paywall all their articles to force you to buy a newspaper or pay twice as much for online access.
I just saw this article last week! I love RSS feeds and set up a bunch through my work email outlook client. They been there since like 2010 (yes I still have the same job…) and I barely touch them these days due to time, and some sites died, but it’s still the quickest way to catch up on the news you want. Wherever I saw this posted last I saw a recommend for FeedFlow and have been messing with that phone app to try and make some ultimate new feed for myself.