DON'T Subscribe - Use RSS for Everything

An underrated way to anonymously follow YouTube channels, podcasts, breaking news, and blogs.

What is RSS and how does it work?

We may not know what RSS stands for, but we know it's a widely supported internet standard used by old people. In short, it's a news feed system based on a link to a file that gets updated. Here's a detailed rundown:

1. A website creates an XML file. In it are all of the posts (news articles, etc.) that will be in the RSS feed.
2. The file is hosted at a permanent URL. A typical link will look like https://example.com/rss or https://example.com/rss.xml.
3. To view the feed, paste the link into an RSS reader (a simple desktop app).
4. The RSS app saves a copy of the XML file to disk and checks the link for changes every hour or so. If the file on the website is different from the version the app has, each new block of text will trigger a notification.

Why RSS wins

I'm no advocate of spending excessive time on computers but it would be useful to hear a chime the next time the world catches fire. This makes RSS the ideal solution. No accounts are required. No personal information is kept on a server. It doesn't use a web browser. There are no movements to track and no ads to distract you from your reading experience. Most email clients support RSS by default, meaning you can check everything in the same place.

But I just use email notifications

Email-based subscriptions come with several disadvantages:

• Filling your inbox with unsorted messages creates clutter. RSS will show up in its own section.
• Subscribing over email involves entering a contract with each website. This means more passwords, more work, and a larger attack surface.
• By default, all sent email notifications will be stored on your email server forever. By contrast, frequent RSS feeds contain only the ~10 most recent articles, so there won't be a deluge of notifications if you take a break.
• Email unsubscribing can involve opening each app or website one at a time.
• Modern websites are bloated, but RSS is pure XML, making downloads rapid even on slow connections.

Where do I start?

Finding RSS links is as easy as using a search engine or checking /sitemap.xml for a file. It can be slightly harder with websites like YouTube. Search for feeds/videos.xml in the page source of the channel:

$ wget -q -O - https://www.youtube.com/@ChannelName | grep -Eo 'https?://[^ ^"]+' | grep feeds/videos.xml | uniq
https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=<hash>
$ 

If a major website doesn't support RSS, there's a good chance an independent relay server has the feed you're looking for. There are also plenty of open source projects for generating RSS files from other formats.

I designed my own RSS generator before writing this article. Feel free to try it out.

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