In this ever-expanding world of the Internet, the updates never stop and keeping up with them is a big issue for users. With content being pushed continuously, it becomes hectic for an individual to find the relevant content. Checking every site for content is a bit hectic, and the amount of information available is huge. To aid you in keeping track of your favourite content from any website on the internet, RSS comes to the rescue.
RSS or Really Simple Syndication is a script that provides you with the exact information you need. It gives you back the control of the situation, and the allows to you be updated without much pain of browsing every site.
Simply put, all the contents are organised and updated in a user-friendly way. It is not limited to news sites but allows us to monitor blogs, social networking sites, share markets, new product launches, to name a few.
RSS refers to a set of XML files that are easily read by the computer and can be automatically updated. The contents are updated in real-time so that the user gets the latest information.
Also read: What is HSTS? Should you enable it on your website?
How does RSS work?
The website admin maintains a list of new notifications that are sent to the user. These notifications are known as RSS Feeds.
Special applications, called as RSS aggregators are designed for the user to access these notifications. The Aggregators also automatically checks the website for the content that you are subscribed and also keeps a tab on the seen and unseen articles. Aggregators also allow customising the feeds according to one’s preferences.
When you visit a website or blog, you might notice an orange icon on the top right corner indicating the presence of RSS feed. Sometimes, a whole list of feeds is visible too. Some browsers like Firefox, Opera and Safari allow you to read within the program itself.
Some of the popular RSS Aggregators that you can use on PC or smartphone are as follows.
- Feedly
- Feedreader
- INOreader
- NewsBlur
- The Old Reader
How to add websites to your RSS feed reader?
How to create an RSS Feed?
RSS uses the World Wide Web’s Resource Description Framework (RDF) as a guide to direct the aggregator to display the feed on a screen. RSS, like HTML, is a standard and can be read by a variety of websites. But since RSS is based on Extensible Markup Language (XML), an extra process runs in the background that informs the aggregator where to search the standard upon which it is based.
Many websites and blogs have inbuilt ability to syndicate their website to the RSS feed, which doesn’t require any knowledge of programming. For example, if you are using Wordpress, you will just have to add /feed/ to the end of your website’s domain name. But if you can write a program of your own, you can write your feed.
You can follow the RSS feed for Candid Technology here.
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