What is RSS and why use it?

RSS has many different meanings. Really Simple Syndication, Rich Site Summary even RDF Site Summary. All those different three word definitions all mean the same thing... You can get the most up-to-date information from a web site without having to browse to it.

To get RSS feeds from a web site you will need some sort of RSS aggregator, otherwise known as a feed reader. Current web browsers can read rss feeds but that defeats the point. Some email clients can read rss feeds and there are several add on applications that work with many email clients to read rss feeds. If you keep your email open all the time one of those add ins could be what you want to use. There are several web sites that will read rss feeds for you. Google and Yahoo both can read feeds for you as well are dedicated feed reading sites like bloglines and feedburner.

I just don't like the idea of going to one web site to read rss feeds from other web sites. I also don't like to be forced to have an email program open to read a feed. That's why I use a stand alone feed reader.

Stand Alone Feed Readers

• iTunes Probably the most used reader that no one knows is a reader. It is limited to feeds written to the podcast standard.
• SharpReader It's the one I use. It may not be the best but it is the easiest I've found to use. It's also free. It only works with Windows.
• FeedDemon A very good reader it's only drawback is the fact that you have to buy it. that's free. It's only for Windows and it's from Newsgator.
• RSS Bandit Is a very nice reader for Windows. It is programmed on the .NET platform so you'll have to make sure you have that up to date. After you get it installed, there are several options that you can tweak. My favorite is the ability to enable or disable the corner popup for individual feeds.
• Snarfer is the most popular reader on download.com It's free and offer complex search features that you can use with sites like craigslist and ebay. Another neat feature is bloglines synchronizing so if you are using a different computer than the one that you have snarfer installed on you can use bloglines to check you feed subscriptions. It only works with Windows.
• Juice is a cross platform podcast reader. If you don't want to be tied down to an iPod and iTunes you can still get podcasts with Juice.
• NetNewsWire is Newsgator's Mac rss feed reader. The full version will cost you but there is a "lite" version that is free.
• BottomFeeder If you are looking for a client that will work on most any computer bottomfeeder is the one. It will work on Mac, Windows and most flavors of Linux.

If you would like to read more about RSS try Wikipedia's article on the subject as well as the site www.whatisrss.com. You can also check out Webreference's introduction to RSS.