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RSS stands for Rich Site Summary or more commonly, Really Simple Syndication. A syndication is a system for distributing information to a large number of people easily such as a newspaper syndication. An RSS Feed is an easy way for you to keep up with new items being posted on web sites that have RSS Feeds available, without having to visit the site first.

Once a day, or whenever you tell it to, your RSS reader will check the websites you have subscribed to for updates. If you check your RSS favorites you will be able to see if there have been any updates since the last time you looked.

You can subscribe to a Feed only if you have a program that can read an RSS file. These are called feed readers or aggregators. To subscribe to a feed, just click on the RSS icon. If your web browser can read a feed, then you will see a page where you can Subscribe to this Feed. If you don't have a compatible RSS reader, then you will see a page full of gobbledegook. In that case, you need to get a reader.

All current major web browsers have built-in Feed readers. There are also a number of Feed readers and feed reading plug-ins available on the Internet. Search Google for Feed reader and you should find several.

As of this posting, I use FireFox as my web browser. However, FireFox is a bit dificult to manage RSS feeds with, so my current favoite RSS reader is a stand alone application called QuiteRSS, available for free from Google Code. (link functional as of July 8, 2013)

To see your subscribed feeds in Internet Explorer, just click the star in the upper corner near the home button and your favorites will open. Look at the top bar above your favorites. Notice the item that says Feeds. Click that and you will see any feeds you are subscribed to. If there are any new updates you haven't seen yet, the feed names will be shown in bold text. Hover your mouse over a subscription and you should see a popup indicating the number of new items available. Internet Explorer comes with Microsoft Office and Microsoft Home Feeds already subscribed. You can delete any Feed, or group of Feeds you don't want by right clicking on the feed and choosing delete.

Page content copied and modified with permission from my personal website
Frank Harrell, webmaster