What are news feeds?

News feeds allow you to see when Web sites have added new content. You can get the latest headlines, audio, and video in one place, as soon as it is published, without having to visit the sites you have taken the feed from.

Feeds are also known as RSS. There is some discussion as to what RSS stands for, but it's usually considered to be for 'Really Simple Syndication'. The feeds are particular kinds of Web pages, designed to be read by computers rather than people.

How do I start using feeds?

In general, the first thing you need is something called a news reader. This is a piece of software that checks the feeds and lets you read any new articles that have been added. There are many different kinds, some of which are accessed using a browser, and some of which are downloadable applications.

Browser-based news readers let you catch up with your RSS feed subscriptions from any computer, whereas downloadable applications let you store them on your main computer, in the same way that you view your e-mail.

Once you have chosen a news reader, all you have to do is decide what content you want it to receive. Look for the small orange button that looks like the image below. That tells you that the link will be a news feed for your reader.

If you click on the button you can subscribe to the feed in various ways, including by dragging the URL of the feed into your news reader or by cutting and pasting the same URL into a new feed in your news reader.

Some browsers, including Internet Explorer 7+, Firefox, Opera, and Safari, automatically check for feeds for you when you visit a Web site, and display an icon when they find one. This can make subscribing to feeds easier. For more details on these, please check their Web sites.

How do I get a news reader?

There is a range of different news readers available and new versions are appearing all the time.

Different news readers work on different operating systems, so you will need to choose one that will work with your computer.

Subscribe to Feeds

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NEWS READERS

Windows
Newz Crawler
FeedDemon
Awasu

Mac OS X
Newsfire
NetNewsWire

Web
Bloglines
NewsGator
Microsoft Live
My Yahoo!

Browser
Mozilla Firefox

Other News Readers (Google)

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