Feeds

What is a feed?

A feed is a data format used for providing frequently updated content, it is also known as a web feed.

Many use the term RSS feed to refer to web feeds, this is because RSS is a popular format. There are many other formats on the web, other popular types are Atom and JSON feeds.

To read a web feed, you will need a program that can understand the feed format, checks for updates, and update it regularly, we call it a newsreader program. Some (including me) like to refer to it as a feed reader program.

Since the web feed is so common and has been here for a long time, you can find good feed readers regardless of which operating system you use.

What feed readers do I use?

As I self-host the Nextcloud News, I use their Nextcloud News for Android app, and on my GNU/Linux system, I use RSS Guard. While the Nextcloud new app for android does not work without a Nextcloud account, RSS Guard does not need an account.

Another app I have on my Android phone is Feeder, which is lightweight and easy to use, and also does not require an account to use.

But don't use just the ones I mentioned here, go out and search the web, there are many nice-looking feed readers out there!

How to add feeds to the reader?

The feeds are discovered by the reader by looking for a few special links on the website.

A good feed reader would detect all feeds from the website's home page link and provide you the list of feeds you can subscribe to. Some might even ask you to enter the complete feed URL instead.

I provide Atom and JSON feeds for blogs and projects pages. The Stories feed might feel a bit special, it is usually not what you want to subscribe to. To get the latest chapters for a story, you will need to subscribe to that individual story.

I also have dedicated pages for all the tags (blog tags, story tags, and project tags).

To subscribe to any of these feeds, just click on the type of feed you want, and either point your feed reader there or copy the feed link from that page and add it to your reader.