Forget billionaire algorithms, use RSS. Most sites have them.
Both the Thimbleweed Park Blog and Grumpy Gamer do. Full text feeds.
I've been using and serving RSS since 2005.
All the cool kids are doing it.
@grumpygamer yeah, and if you're using Vivaldi, the RSS reader is built-in.
@gbsills @grumpygamer I don't want it built-in. If Vivalidi enshittifies, that means I have to drag my saved feeds somewhere else, again.
@Azuaron @grumpygamer Unless you are writing your own reader, any reader you chose may let you down in the future.
@gbsills @grumpygamer There are degrees of probability with that, though. I'm currently using FreshRSS, which I don't generally recommend for people because it requires you to have an understanding of Docker. But, it is open source, so if the maintainers go out of their minds with, for instance, AI slop or something, I can always pause updates, and it's not like the RSS standard has frequent updates. If I need to, I can fork it and make whatever minor tweaks are required.
What I really want is a dedicated desktop app that's open source and I could recommend to people, but I haven't found a good one.
All that being said, this may end with me writing a Servo-powered RSS desktop app and hating that it's come to this.
And that being said, bold of you to assume I wouldn't let myself down. 😅
@Azuaron @gbsills @grumpygamer You don't necessarily need to self-host FreshRSS, there are many free public instances since it's not expensive to run.
@gbsills @Azuaron @grumpygamer
Indeed, I'm on my third reader for that reason. Happily export and import hasn't been too onerous.
@gbsills @Azuaron @grumpygamer Any decent RSS reader will let you export your subscriptions. Right? Switching costs are low.
I use the RSS feature of Google Alerts to find news on specific topics across the web. I often wonder when/if they'll discontinue that service, or enshittify it with ads. For now, it's great - Google without Google
Oct 16, 2026, 2:18 AM@Azuaron @gbsills @grumpygamer I've migrated my feed readers many times, from local software, to free online services, to payed services, and then to self-hosted freshRSS. It's easy enough (just one file to export). Glad that this technology is so interopable
@Azuaron @gbsills @grumpygamer
No worries, just make sure you can export your OPML and you can switch between readers just fine. I personally switched readers many times, and it was always a super-easy process.
@grumpygamer ReSiStance ?
@grumpygamer RSS, BBS, email lists: old tech FTW
@grumpygamer RSSistance
Oct 16, 2026, 2:10 AM@grumpygamer Which would you recommend from a blog writer perspective?
@HobbyHero I use hugo for static sites.
@grumpygamer 100% Few weeks back went in and made sure my site was RSS happy!
@grumpygamer the message, which i agree with, is undercut by this website being totally and obviously AI generated.
Oct 16, 2026, 2:47 AM@760ceb3b9c0ba4872cadf3ce35a7a4 @grumpygamer I'm NGL, seeing "the resistance" followed by suggesting AI software did 3 psychic damage.
@vex @grumpygamer eyeroll x 1000
Oct 16, 2026, 5:35 AM@760ceb3b9c0ba4872cadf3ce35a7a4 @grumpygamer visibly vibecoded website. had to wash our eyes out after closing the tab. ugh
Oct 16, 2026, 3:33 AM@grumpygamer I was an active RSS enjoyer until all the things Ibwas subscribes to stopped supporting RSS :(
Write an RSS-Bridge for it: https://rss-bridge.org/
Oct 16, 2026, 9:27 AM@thefranke It has been a decade now, only thing I can remember using it for at this point was youtube's subscriptions which they broke deliberately
@Jourei What broke exactly? I subscribe to a lot of channels and currently they seem to work just fine?
Oct 16, 2026, 9:36 AM@thefranke Via RSS? Suppose it's fixed then, which is great to hear. I really don't remember what the issue was, it degraded gradually until the feeds went quiet.
It's not a feature I really use nowadays anyway
@Jourei Yeah, the feeds are hidden on YT, but they are all there. You can easily find them via https://getrssfeed.com/
Oct 16, 2026, 9:50 AM@thefranke ooh, I gotta look into this again. Thank you!
@grumpygamer Good advice. I've been using 'snownews' in Linux for a long time: https://sourceforge.net/projects/snownews/
@grumpygamer I'd be stoked if I could get RSS through tor.
@grumpygamer I use ReadYou from @fdroidorg. Very nice and simple app. F-Droid also has a blog post every once in a while about updates on free softwares. Recommended!
@theimpulson @grumpygamer @fdroidorg Do have a look at FeedMe (https://github.com/seazon/FeedMe). Supports a number of services, including self-hosted) and can be configured to download everything, including webpage and images, for full offline use.
@ranggie4 @grumpygamer @fdroidorg seems cool but not open source? Also seems to be AI-powered.
@theimpulson @grumpygamer @fdroidorg The AI option I believe is a user facing feature. As for the source, not sure of that as I don't see any disclosure of license. Need to contact Shawn and ask him. Great guy. Perhaps he'll consider if there are enough devs to assist him.
@grumpygamer Sure, let's start rebelling by using RSS. But writing about it on Mastodon strikes me as more childish than anything else. The problem itself is very concrete: a handful of giant companies have enclosed public debate inside their own silos, which they control — and that leaves us incapable of making any collective decision as a society. Those companies are Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, X and TikTok. So: any concrete ideas about what to actually do about it at the societal level?
@16677 I have no idea what you're talking about.
@grumpygamer Thank you for the advocacy and the very helpful resource link.
@16677
@16677 @grumpygamer Now add reddit to that. They plan on closing their RSS service.
@grumpygamer Cool. I could have used this list before coding my own RSS browser >> #RSSEnterprise https://mprove.de/blogs/rss/index.php?rss=hci.social/@mprove/tagged/rssenterprise.rss
@grumpygamer I'm using #FeedBro (the Firefox Plugin) again even though it's not been updated for years, still works fine. RSS is the best.
@waldschnecke I really like Feedbro, in preference to all other RSS readers I've tried. I wish there were also a version on Firefox for Linux. (& Android ?) @grumpygamer
@AquaClaire @grumpygamer I'm only familiar with the Firefox plugin Feedbro. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/feedbroreader/
It doesn't let you install it from the plugin-website on android, but I'm quite certain you can just download the XPI file and install it on android. (I have not tried that)
@waldschnecke Interesting! Edit: it works! I followed these instructions to see the Android hidden menu & install the XPI file there. https://extensionworkshop.com/documentation/publish/install-self-distributed/
On Firefox for Linux there's a warning of inability to add feeds or modify properties but actually it works fine.
Ability to run Feedbro on Firefox for Linux is the one thing I wanted before full migration to the OS, thank you so much for this advice!
(should't that be "RSSistance"...?)
@grumpygamer #SereneReader is missing from the list.
Oct 17, 2026, 1:47 AM@gyrusinczky @grumpygamer added!
@grumpygamer
I wonder about the claim that "most sites have them". In my subjective view, there was a time when an RSS feed (or better several) was an absolute must-have for any website, and nowadays they are often hidden or non-existent.
Do you have any numbers about that? OTOH it might be just worse tools nowadays and less up-front marketing of the feeds, so that I don't perceive as many.
@schmidt_fu @grumpygamer I don't have numbers either but I've been poking at this for a few years and many sites don't say they have RSS but actually they do. To list just a few of the big names, in no order: BlueSky, Mastodon, Steam. Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter until it became X (RIP), Reddit just announced they would *stop* having RSS (RIP again), Webtoon, RoyalRoad... That's only the big sites I remember at the top of my head, there are many others of all size. But it is true that many of these don't showcase or advertise their RSS feeds. But if your reader is able to detect feeds in a page you'll suddenly discover a lot of them.
@grumpygamer regarding rss feeds of mastodon acconts: I think they suck. They don't contain the entire text content of the post but only the first few words?
@seepr @grumpygamer Maybe your instance is giving you a preview, try RSS-Bridge ActivityPub bridge:
https://rss-bridge.org/bridge01/?action=display&bridge=MastodonBridge&canusername=%40grumpygamer%40mastodon.gamedev.place&signaturetype=noquery&format=Html
This one is for Ron's feed. You can also configure it to leave out replies/boosts.
@grumpygamer @airakose obvious slop website
@whitequark bleh, thats on me. I only did a cursory glance. It defs looks sketch, and the top recs are for slop feeds too so either way, yeah...
Thanks, unshared
also think I owe you an apology. Havent realized.
Was thinking about hijacking this thread + post something fun/ interesting about rss or dave wiener and his first fucking post is about how some slopmachine is not accepting a "source of trough" or some shit.
But it lead to me realizing that massive data center energy demand will also slow or even stop the adoption of solar+wind by guzzling up all possible resources; keeping prices high.
@grumpygamer https://feedcontrol.fivefilters.org/ is also very handy for making /managing RSS for sites where one is not available
@grumpygamer This is the way.
You should spell it ReSiStance
@grumpygamer
Here is my list of recommended feeds.
https://uncensorednews.us/rss-feeds
@grumpygamer sadly many websites only put the headline and potentially the first paragraph into the feed, so you still have to click through to the site to read it
@woollypigs @grumpygamer so.. like on X or other silos? 😆
anyway, I get the sentiment. This is why projects like https://github.com/RSS-Bridge/rss-bridge#rant (or granary.io) exist.
Oct 16, 2026, 7:43 AMMost Wordpress sites have an RSS stream _by default_.
Oct 16, 2026, 7:52 AM@grumpygamer It's really not been my experience that most sites have RSS feeds, any longer. That may have been true in the past, but I think sites didn't see the value in maintaining them, because most RSS reader software is so bad that it's a worse experience for users, especially when the feeds are poorly designed, so why bother?
In 2011, I bought a 1st gen Kindle Fire specifically to load CyanogenMod on so I could run Google Currents as an RSS reader, which Google promptly discontinued.