What Is RSS?

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

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