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More About US-CERT RSS and Atom Feeds

Why would I want to subscribe to RSS feeds?

RSS and RSS-type feeds save you the trouble of going to various web sites to look for new articles and information. Instead, RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds send this information to you. By subscribing to a feed, you choose what topic or information you're interested in and receive notification when new content about this topic is available. Using your RSS reader or RSS-enabled web browser, you can quickly scan your feeds for the information you want.

For instance, let's say you've lived in Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago and you want to keep up with local news in each of these cities. To get this news, you could go to the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune Review, and New York Times web sites individually and browse each paper's local news section. This could take a lot of time. By subscribing to the RSS feeds for each paper's local news, you could receive local headline feeds from all three papers and quickly scan them for articles that interest you.

What exactly is a "feed?"

A feed is a summary of new web site articles. It's published to people who choose to receive it by subscribing to the feed. This summary is usually a list of titles that link to full articles, and may sometimes include the first line or two of each article. The blue RSS and orange Atom buttons on the US-CERT web site show what content is available through US-CERT feeds.

What are RSS and Atom?

RSS and Atom are the feed formats used by US-CERT. They were chosen because most RSS readers understand these formats.

What is an RSS reader?

RSS readers (also called RSS aggregators) allow you to subscribe to feeds. The RSS reader will download and display the feeds you select. A number of free and commercial readers are available on the web for download. You can also subscribe to feeds using a web browser that has the reader software built in, or using a web-based RSS reader.

How do I subscribe to a US-CERT feed?

There are a number of ways to subscribe to US-CERT feeds. The following are the most common:

  • Subscribe using an RSS-enabled browser - Some web browsers, such as Mozilla Firefox, include the ability to subscribe to RSS feeds. Using Firefox, look for the orange icon in the bottom right corner of the Firefox browser window, then click it to subscribe to either the RSS or Atom feed. Firefox will give you the option to file the feed in your bookmark directory. See the help file of other browsers to determine whether the browser can accept RSS feeds and, if so, how to use it to subscribe to feeds.

  • Subscribe using a "stand-alone" RSS reader - A growing number of RSS reader programs is available on the web for download. A web search on the terms "RSS reader" will provide you a number of choices. Download and install the reader of your choice, browse to US-CERT pages containing the feeds you’re interested in, and subscribe by following the instructions in your RSS reader's help file.

  • Subscribe through a web-based reader - Some major web sites provide registered users the ability to subscribe to RSS feeds. For instance, Yahoo! does so through its My Yahoo! service and Google is testing its Google Reader. These readers are comparatively simple to use. Registered users of these sites should see the sites' help pages to learn about using these web-based RSS readers.