Chrome originally integrated RSS feeds in the new tab page, to show you when there were new posts on sites you frequently visited. We cut the feature just before launch, because it wasn't fully baked, and never resurrected it. (I know this because I worked on this code.)<p>With more perspective on the problem, I think the way we implemented it at the time was wrong, with the XML processing done in unsandboxed C++. At the time, Chrome didn't use any HTML for its UI like the new tab page, so only web content was sandboxed, but with today's perspective it's obvious to me you want to process XML content with the same sandboxing indirection you use for other untrusted data formats. So in retrospect I'm glad the feature didn't launch as it was, because it would've been a security disaster.<p>Also my recollection is that the code wasn't great. (I feel allowed to say that because I authored it -- I'm not slagging on my coworkers.)
Very nearly all of my web browser activity that isn't Googling things for work starts with my RSS feed. It's how I get 100% of my news, including Hacker News. It's how I monitor things I'm shopping for. It's how I consume podcasts, youtube, music blogs, and comics. My friends do the same. When people say RSS became unpopular, are they referring to consumers, producers, or both?
I never left RSS. When Google Reader ended, I migrated to feedly and continue to follow a bunch of blogs there. I hope the current newsletter fad comes around to RSS as well.<p>FWIW, I noticed that Substack has RSS feeds for its newsletters, so that is an option.
1) This makes perfect business sense: Google failed to create its own social feed that would stick, so instead it's piggybacking off of a standard technology (and I'm sure it'll collect plenty of data just like it would from an actual social feed). This is what Google did in the early days with other technologies like the open web and email, and it's generally a good thing for everybody (until they enter the "extend" and "extinguish" phases later on)<p>2) Question as someone who's new to RSS: is there a standard URL path that a reader can use to automatically find your XML feed? I've already added RSS to my site, but right now there's just a home page link to the XML document, I'm not sure how it would be auto-discovered for such a "follow" button
I love RSS and hope this brings it back into the mainstream.<p>Another article on the front page is about the Amish and carefully evaluating how tech fits into your life and values, and who it serves.<p>Applying that here -- RSS <i>does</i> serve those who want to get updates from a site, and <i>does not</i> serve advertisers and cookie-traffickers. RSS is peak "good old days" of the Web.
This is great news. Sure, it is still "algorithmically curated" but at least it pushes sites to have RSS feeds. Then users can use the built-in simple Chrome reader or upgrade to something more powerful.<p>My only major concern is that the format of appearing on the New Tab Page may encourage short "summary" style feeds instead of full-content feeds.
This is so ironic, because the lack of RSS in Chrome was the reason I built the RSS Feed Reader extension for Chrome back in 2010 when switching from Firefox.<p><a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/rss-feed-reader/pnjaodmkngahhkoihejjehlcdlnohgmp" rel="nofollow">https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/rss-feed-reader/pn...</a>
> That said, the algorithmic feed will use your follows to surface content.<p>If this means that feeds will be sorted/hidden based on a black box trained to sell me things, sorry but I won't call that rss.<p>Rss for me is an aggregator, a list where all and every item of multiple lists are placed together and sorted chronologically, optionally with tags to filter if needed. I choose the lists to aggregate, I decide which posts to read and which not, and if I don't like the content of a list, I'm the one to remove it. I have full control, not an algorithm.
Here's a question... does that 'follow' button actually just extract the RSS feed tag from the page, and store it locally for use in your new tab page... OR does it do a round robin to Google so they can track which feeds are being fetched?<p>If it's the latter, then no-thank-you.
Official blog post from Chromium: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27217283" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27217283</a>
Before there was chrome, browsers use to have native RSS support. To this date chrome does not support RSS natively. They are responsible for killing RSS. Now they are bringing it back with a social media buzz word 'follow'.<p>This is a shitty play.
For quite some time I've been sharing my beliefs that RSS is having some kind of a renaissance. I've been planning to build a feed/RSS/content reader for quite some time and even started coding in the beginning of this week.<p>Google's "revival" of RSS is reassuring that my beliefs/observations might not be too wrong.
I wrote up a blog post on an idea of what if google had a site that looked similar to youtube, but was links to webpages instead of videos. Like youtube it would let you "subscribe". Also like youtube if would recommend other articles based on your subscriptions and/or clicked links.<p>My "aha moment", assuming it was an aha moment, was noticing the number of views on certain youtube channels and believing that blog posts generally don't get a similar number of view. At first I thought the obvious reason is people like videos more than blog posts. But then I thought, well, maybe one reasons is because youtube recommends more things to watch as well as lets you subscribe and blog posts don't.<p><a href="https://games.greggman.com/game/google-like-youtube/" rel="nofollow">https://games.greggman.com/game/google-like-youtube/</a>
The status of RSS never changed for me, the only thing that changed was the move from Reader to Feedly....<p>on that subject, anyone know of a way to filter out keywords on a feed in feedly?<p>ie I have a RSS feed that has Amazon stuff popping up in it, I loath anything amazon and don't want to see anything with the word Amazon in it.
Old open Web 2.0 til infinity heads rejoice.<p>Sure it's a pseudo-killer app/tech on the net we lost somewhat (yes I know, never went away really) but it's also been there done that.<p>Firefox had this. Email apps and "Readers" had it.
But we moved to following Twitter feeds and social. And the number of sites publishing out there went down anyways. Yes, there's been an uptick in personal sites and blogs again for sure. But despite what we see in the tech bubble are there really that many sites/feeds out there worth following? That aren't being followed elsewhere already?<p>Having Options for ways to keep in touch are good sure but history repeats when we'll see again the feature isn't worth maintaining or provides no return for publishers.<p>Sorry I missed the googleio discussion earlier.
Is this going to be a true client side RSS that talks to all 5k of websites I follow or a service provided by Google that polls for new content?
I would be fasinated to see what telemetry/buisness objective has them moving back in this direction.
And surprisingly enough, Google News produces RSS feeds for its top stories, topics and even searches. Anyone's guess how long they'll keep it around.<p>I wrote about it here: <a href="https://www.fivefilters.org/2021/google-news-rss-feeds/" rel="nofollow">https://www.fivefilters.org/2021/google-news-rss-feeds/</a>
I actually run my own RSS feed aggregator (FreshRSS) and I can tell you that it's great. Combine that with an iOS app like NetNewsWire, I have hundreds of sites that are synced between my devices. It's actually how I read HN at this point (via hnrss).
Lol, I like and use RSS.<p>Given recent conversations, I just have to point out that RSS goes right into email. Great match, will work like a treat, just saying.
I'm sick of the hodgepodge of different techniques needed to get notified of blog updates.<p>But I'd prefer this was a separate web service rather than tied to chrome so I can view it on safari on my phone too. But if Google makes it more attractive for websites to support RSS then more tools/readers will become available.
Right after they disabled rss feeds and people lapped up chrome even when google canned RSS as dead.<p>Forcing Firefox to follow that.<p>And now google comes back with, look at this shiny new RSS.<p>Fuck you Google. Youre a plague and cancer to the internet.
All I ever wanted was a plaintext website where I can add my rss subscriptions linked to my account via email address and a front page where all my feed titles show.<p>Why does this not exist?
>if a site doesn’t use RSS, Google will fall back to its existing content index to keep users updated.<p>This sounds like an "embrace extend extinguish" strategy. Piggyback on websites that have RSS for basic functionality, but use Google's control over the browser to ultimately push websites into something like update aggregation to "reduce server load" that allows Google to track people even when they think they are using an open alternative. It's similar to Google's recent move on FlOC. Making small easily reversible moves towards an open web that protect Google's core position from regulation and users choosing alternatives.<p>EDIT: If Google deserved the benefit of the doubt they wouldn't still be reading people's email to build creepy profiles on everyone's interests and browsing history. I'm not a fool, I'll consider giving them the benefit of the doubt after they stop that and delete all the data they have collected.
It was never dead.<p>If you like RSS, don't rely on Google. They'll probably kill it again [0] after this experiment runs its course, or wait until more people adopt it by default and then try to break yet another open standard.<p>If you'd like a recommendation, Feedbin is fantastic.<p>0] <a href="https://killedbygoogle.com/" rel="nofollow">https://killedbygoogle.com/</a>