RSS is a system which keeps you in
touch with the news by automatically sending the latest stories to your
computer, so you don't have to trawl through dozens of sites to get your
fix.
RSS, which stands for Really Simple Syndication, works rather like an
old-fashioned news wire service.
RSS can deliver you, the user, up-to-date content from dozens of websites,
saving you the hassle of having to click from site to site in order to get
the latest stories.
You can get news stories, pictures, audio and video, podcasts and blog
updates by subscribing to RSS feeds.
RSS works by getting your computer to download what is called an XML feed
onto an RSS reader. XML is a data stream with the latest headlines and
stories from the section of the website you have chosen.
The feed is then updated every time new articles or content appears, so all
you have to do is load your RSS reader and read - you don’t need to visit
the individual websites.
You can also subscribe to as many RSS feeds as you want to, meaning that you
can get content from all of your favourite sites in one place.
How to use RSS feeds
To use RSS you need an RSS feed reader (also called an aggregator) -
software which translates the data into a readable format for you.
Hundreds are available - mostly for free - either as downloads or sometimes
attached to other internet software.
Several browsers, including Internet Explorer 7, Mozilla Firefox, Opera and
Safari, allow you to view RSS feeds directly in your browser window.
Once you’ve chosen your reader, you just have to look for the distinctive
orange RSS logo (or sometimes the words RSS or XML on a button) on the
website or section of a website that you want to subscribe to.
Then you can either…
Click on the icon and, while keeping the mouse button pressed down, drag
the icon into your RSS reader. This will automatically download the content
you selected into your reader.
Click on the orange RSS icon or the text link underneath the logo and
then, when the RSS feed page opens, copy and paste the URL of that page into
the ‘add feed’ section of your RSS reader.
You can subscribe to as many RSS feeds as you want to by visiting all of
your favourite websites and repeating the process.
Our RSS feeds
Before you choose the RSS feeds you want to subscribe to, please tick this box to indicate that you have read and agree to our RSS terms and conditions of use*