So here is a quick guide for those people who want to know about RSS feeds and it's usage.

If you are an average web visitor, you have around 5 or 10 web sites that you want to visit often and another 20 to 30 that you would like to visit whenever they have new content.

But, how exactly do you know when there is an update? Well, there were only two methods so far: book marking and joining that newletter.

With Bookmarks, the advantage is you are anonymous. With Newsletter, the advantage is web master can let you know whenever there is an update but your inbox can be flooded with spams.

But RSS is actually the best of both worlds. Here is a way in which you can remain anonymous and still stay connected with your favorite websites without having to visit them.This technology is called RSS feeds(Really simple syndication).

Now let's understand, how RSS works?

Webmasters will update all the new contents in their website or blog in a document called RSS feeds ( these web pages are written in XML language) and provide a link to subscribe to their RSS feeds.

Just like how you use browsers to read websites, there are RSS readers (both web and desktop based readers) that are programmed to read RSS feeds. Feedreader and Feeddemon2.6 are one of the best desktop based free rss readers that I use. You can install any one of them. See the screenhot of feedreader below.


Assuming that you do have a RSS reader, you will go to your favorite site. If it is RSS enabled, you will save the link and add it to your Rss reader. Now, whenever the webmaster adds new content as RSS feed on thier site, it finds all the readers which subscribed to it and pings them. The video below illustrates the process.

Suppose you are using google account, you already have web based rss reader called google reader. Just login with google reader and subscribe to your favourite feeds.

You may notice that recent web browsers already identify RSS feeds, so you will be able to see the RSS icon both on the Navigation Bar of your browser and on the page itself, as the screenshot below illustrates.


For more info, you can refer Wikipedia entry for RSS..

And finally, dont forget to Subscribe my RSS feeds .