Dear reader,
Have you ever found a cool or interesting website, a blog, or anything that you bookmarked, but realized months or even years later that you hardly ever visit it? Or maybe you have a habit of checking these sites regularly? Perhaps you would like to have more control over the content you see and rely less on algorithms. Well, there is a way to keep up with content you find interesting while improving your life online. Let me introduce RSS to you. For those of you who are already familiar with it, you may still want to continue reading as I will give some tips regarding RSS you may not be aware of.
So what is RSS? It’s a way to keep up with your favorite content and organize it all in one place. It can eliminate the need for checking updates yourself, which has many benefits. All you need is an RSS reader: an app to follow the content you subscribe to. There are many great free options, but I’m using the hosted version of Miniflux for $15/year, but you could also self-host it for free. But let’s get to those benefits now.
It saves your time
This is perhaps the most obvious advantage of RSS, since you will save a lot of time when you stop visiting websites to keep up with new content. Instead, your chosen RSS reader keeps you up-to-date. I’m currently subscribing to 94 different feeds, so even the thought of manually checking them feels overwhelming. Yet, with Miniflux this feels effortless even if the number of subscriptions is high. Many sites don’t publish new content that often, which definitely helps, but I would also develop a habit of checking your feeds a few times per day, especially if you have a lot of subscriptions.
It improves your privacy
Most websites load unnecessary third-party scripts and trackers in order to profile you, so you’ll gain privacy when you don’t need to visit them. While you could say that using a privacy-respecting browser with a content blocker and a VPN could make this a nonissue, browser fingerprinting is a growing problem that isn’t easily defeated. Regardless, by running fewer scripts on your browser, you can reduce your attack surface.
It frees you from algorithms
I’m using RSS to maintain my YouTube subscriptions, so I don’t need to visit YouTube to keep up with them. With Miniflux, I can even watch the videos right there on the app. This is a great way to avoid the YouTube algorithm and the sea of recommendations that makes the YouTube experience a lot more reactive than it should be. So, instead of choosing yourself what you want to watch, YouTube will make that choice for you. You may think you’re in control, but in reality, you’re just feeding the algorithm. This is how most social media platforms work, so it’s a good idea to avoid the algorithm if you can.
Final tips
While I love using RSS for many things, I wouldn’t use it to keep up with all the content a major news site publishes because that can make your RSS feed crowded. You could still do this, but I prefer to keep things tidy. The good news is that some websites like The Verge offer multiple RSS feeds to choose from, so as an example, you could solely subscribe to their cybersecurity news.
Miniflux has also recently introduced a feature that allows you to choose the content you want to subscribe to when adding YouTube channels. You can get updates for everything, or just videos, for example. This means you can even exclude shorts if you want to.
I wanted to write this article because I think more people should know about RSS. My guess is that most probably don’t even know it exists. If you end up trying out RSS and you enjoy reading my blog, you can also add my blog’s feed to your list of subscriptions. While I can’t see how many of you are reading my blog this way, I still appreciate all of you. 🌔