What Is RSS?

Disclaimer: Any mention of third party products on this page does not constitute endorsement of any product or its functionality, but is merely for explanatory purposes.

RSS is a technology that allows you to have newsfeeds, blogs and podcasts automatically delivered to your computer or other device (like an MP3 player). It's like being on an email listserv in that you receive things as they are posted, except that you don't have to give out your email address (and risk being spammed).

Another advantage to RSS is that you can get all your favorite information sent to you automatically in one location—your feed reader—instead of having to visit a bunch of different websites each day. If you decide you don't want a particular feed any longer, you simply delete it from your feed reader, and that's that.

Most feed readers and feeds are free.

How do I subscribe?

1. Get a feed reader.

In order to receive blogs and newsfeeds by RSS, you need a feed reader (sometimes called an aggregator) to subscribe to the newsfeed or blog. Sometimes you can still subscribe by email, if the blog or newsfeed offers that feature. Feed readers are available as:

• Plug-ins for your browser (such as Firefox or Internet Explorer); some browsers now come with the option to subscribe to the feed as a special type of bookmark
• Plug-ins for your email client (such as Outlook or Thunderbird); some email clients now come with options for subscribing and receiving news feeds like emails
• Stand-alone programs for your computer (such as FeedDemon)
• Features of personalized web-based start up pages (like My Yahoo! or Google's personalized homepage)
• Other web-based feed readers (like Pluck)

Click here for a list of feed readers for various platforms.

Choose an option that you will be able to use easily and frequently. For example, people who check email often should choose an email option for receiving newsfeeds.

2. Plug in the feed's URL.

Sometimes you can simply click on the feed's URL or its "subscribe" button. If that doesn't work, copy the URL and paste it into your feed reader. Follow your reader's directions for subscribing.

3. Read!

You will need to periodically check your feed reader for the latest feeds.

If you wish to unsubscribe at any point, your feed reader should have instructions on how to do so, which should be as simple as deleting the feed URL from your reader.