What the heck is RSS?

RSS files

RSS aggregators

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you watched the video on the previous page, you should have an idea of how RSS works (if not, it may be helpful if you go back and watch it).

RSS files are small, ugly little text files which look like this:

but fortunately, you don't need to worry about that.

Modern web browers such as Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer 7 can read RSS files and display the results. You can recongize a web page which contains a link to an RSS file by an icon which appears in the browser navigation bar, or by icons on the web page such as these:

RSS icon
RSS icon
RSS icon

These browsers will allow to to "subscribe" to the RSS feed (don't worry, it's free) by saving a favorite/bookmark.
But there is another (and probably better) way to read RSS feeds.

 

RSS aggregators >

RSS file
click for larger image