About RSS
RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication”. RSS is an alternative means of accessing the vast amount of information that now exists on the world wide web. Instead of the user repeatedly returning to their favourite websites for the latest updates, the information is sent directly to the user.
RSS feed items contain short descriptions of web content together with a link to the full version of the content. This saves you time checking to see if your favourite sites have new content.
You can use a program called a “news reader” to store the locations of RSS feeds, and each time one is updated you can easily see what’s new. News readers can be either offline – where the software and feed information is stored on your computer, or online where the information is stored on the web. Some popular RSS readers are:
Offline
Sharpreader or RSS Bandit (both free) for Windows or NetNewsWire Lite for Macs. The Firefox web browser has an RSS plugin called Newsfox. A non-free offline reader with more features is FeedDemon costing about £20. A screen shot can be seen below.
Online
Google Reader (see a video explaining about RSS here), Bloglines and Newsgator are online news readers.
