What is RSS?
RSS is a way to follow blogs, news websites and other sites on the internet without having to check them all the time. You pick the ones you care about, add them to a "reader" app like Feedgrab, and new posts show up in one place soon after they're published.
Your RSS reader is like a personal newspaper made from only the sources you chose, with articles delivered automatically in the order things actually happened. There's no algorithm deciding what you see, and no newsletters piling up in your inbox. It's kinda old school and very refreshing!
Why use RSS?
If you read a handful of blogs, follow some news websites, or watch a few YouTube channels, you've probably noticed how much effort there is in keeping up with it all. You either try to remember to visit each one, or you let a social media algorithm decide what to show you, or you let newsletters pile up in your inbox.
RSS takes this pain away.
You decide what you see
You follow only the blogs and websites you actually want to read. If one gets boring or too noisy, unfollow it in one click.
New things stay new
Posts arrive in the order they were published. A three-day-old article doesn't get dragged back to the top just because the comments are heating up.
Your inbox stays an inbox
Newsletters are fine, but your inbox is already a hot mess. Reading deserves its own quiet corner.
Small blogs become easy to follow
Personal blogs, product blogs, even Substacks can all be followed using RSS. Never miss a post!
How do I use it?
You need one thing: an "RSS reader" app to add sites to. That's it. An easy way to get started is with Feedgrab â it's free, works in your browser, and keeps things simple. To get going:
- Sign up for a free account
- Paste in the URL of a blog or website you want to follow. Feedgrab finds the feed for you (and it even has a discovery area to help you find sites based on your interests)
- When sites you follow publish something new, the article appears in your reading list within the hour
Pro tip: start with five sites, not fifty. RSS is at its best when it's a curated reading list, not a second inbox to keep on top of. You can always add more later. Keep it simple.
What kind of sites can I follow?
Most sites that publish articles or updates regularly have an RSS feed, even if they don't shout about it. Some examples:
- Personal blogs
- News websites and online magazines
- YouTube channels (every channel has a feed)
- Podcasts
- Substack and Medium publications
Pro tip: Major news websites like the BBC or the Guardian have RSS feeds, but they publish dozens of articles a day. If you subscribe to one, it'll quickly drown out everything else in your reading list. For news sites like those, it's usually better to keep visiting them the normal way, and save RSS for the blogs and smaller sites that you'd otherwise forget to check.
If you're not sure whether a site has a feed, paste its URL into Feedgrab and it will let you know.
How does this actually work behind the scenes?
You don't need to know any of this to use RSS, but here it is in case you're curious.
A feed is a hidden page the website publishes alongside its normal pages, in XML format. This feed page contains a list of the most recent posts â usually a title, a link, a date, and a summary or the full text of each one. When a site publishes something new, the feed page is updated.
Your reader (Feedgrab, for the cool kids) checks that file every hour or so. When it finds something it hasn't shown you before, it adds it to your reading list. There's no account on the website's end, no tracking, no API key. The site doesn't even know you're subscribed. It's entirely private, which is another part of the appeal.
What does RSS stand for?
RSS officially means Really Simple Syndication. It has also been called "Rich Site Summary" or "RDF Site Summary" in the past. If you want the long version, Wikipedia has the full history.
I'm sold â I want to give it a try!
To get to grips with RSS, try and use it for a week. Pick a reader app, add a few blogs you'd genuinely like to keep up with, then check it only when you feel like it. You'll probably find it very refreshing and wonder how you lived without it!
There are plenty of readers out there, but Feedgrab is free and it was built to make RSS as effortless as possible to use. You use Feedgrab in your browser, on any device, and there's even a browser extension to show you when a feed is available on a site you're visiting (Firefox and Chrome only for now, sorry!).
Give it a go - there's literally nothing to lose!