Life on the web made easier

No-one enjoys having to regularly refresh favourite websites to ensure nothing is missed. One solution is a technology called RSS, or Really Simple Syndication.

This allows websites to create a news feed to which visitors can subscribe; then, when new content appears on the site, some or all of it is sent automatically to the subscriber.

In this article, we’ll explain how feeds work and how to benefit from RSS feeds using the free Google Reader program.

Recognising RSS feeds
Not all web pages have RSS feeds but it’s usually easy to tell those that do. Most modern web browsers include a little RSS icon on their toolbar that looks like a square with three lines radiating up from the bottom-left corner.

When a website has an available RSS feed this square turns bright orange. As well, websites typically display the same orange square prominently when a feed is present.

RSS feeds like this can be managed using an RSS-reader tool such as the one we’re going to look at here – Google Reader.

Finding feeds
Launch a web browser – we're using Internet Explorer – and visit Computeractive's website. When the site loads, find the orange RSS icon at the top right and click it.

At the next page, scroll down to the ‘Our free RSS feeds’ heading and click the ‘All articles’ link underneath. At the next page, see the yellow panel at the top? Click the ‘Subscribe to this feed’ link there. When the Subscribe dialogue box appears, type in a name for the feed and click OK.

Using Firefox or Chrome? Firefox calls feeds Live Bookmarks and stores them under the Bookmarks menu, while Chrome uses an RSS add-on that needs installing – open the program’s Help section and search for RSS.

Viewing RSS feeds
Having subscribed to the feed, you can now sit back and wait for Computeractive's news to arrive in the browser. In Internet Explorer, click the Favorites button and then click the Feeds tab. Hover the mouse pointer over the Computeractive feed and a tooltip will pop up to show how many new and unread stories there are.

Click on the link and any new stories will appear in the main browser window – each one has a headline, picture and brief description. Clicking on the headline opens the story on the website.

Meet Google Reader
There is a better way to read and manage RSS feeds. Visit the Google Reader page, sign in with your Google account and password (or click the Sign up for a new Google Account and follow the instructions to create a new one).

After a moment or two, Google Reader will appear in the browser and show five example stories; have a read and then click the Recommended items entry in the Explore section of the left-hand column.

The main window will fill with dozens of stories from around the web; in some cases, it’ll be the whole story, in others it’s just a headline. In each case, it’s possible to click the double arrow next to the headline to read the story on the original website.

Adding feeds
There are various ways to add new feeds. To add the aforementioned Computeractive ‘All articles’ feed, for instance, navigate to the feed page with the yellow ‘Subscribe to this feed’ panel at the top and click once in the Address line to highlight what’s there, then right-click on it and choose Copy from the pop-up menu.

Flip back to Google Reader and click the ‘Add a subscription’ button, then right-click in the empty box that appears and click Paste. Click the Add button and stories from the feed will appear in the main window.

Check the Subscriptions heading in the left-hand panel and the new feed will also appear there – feeds in bold contain unread stories.

To find feeds by subject rather than going to each page individually, click the Add a subscription button and type in a topic – for example Football Guardian – and click Add.

Reader will return a list of feeds it thinks fits the bill – click on the title and a new screen appears with more information, sample stories and a ‘More like this’ panel that lists similar feeds. Click the Subscribe button to add the feed.

It’s possible to subscribe to Facebook pages and Youtube channels in the same way. Click Add a subscription, type in Facebook Computeractive, for example, and when the results list appears, click the Subscribe button under the relevant heading.

Alternatively, type Youtube BBC and it'll return a list of the BBC’s Youtube channels, such as Worldwide, Comedy and so on.

Reading and sharing stories
In Google Reader, individual stories displayed in the feed list cannot be deleted. Instead, click the ‘New items’ link at the top of the list, then open a story to mark it as read, click the Refresh button and it will disappear from the list.

Fed up with a feed? Hover the mouse pointer over to its title in the left-hand panel and click the downward-pointing arrow to open the menu, then choose Unsubscribe and click OK to confirm.

There are plenty of ways to share, flag and tag feeds by using the controls that appear at the bottom of each item, but this keeps things within Google’s empire. Instead, click the cog in the top right-hand corner and choose Reader settings from the menu.

At the next screen click Send To and then select the services you’d like to be able to share stories with (for example Facebook and Twitter) then click the Back to Google Reader link at the top.

To share a good story, open it, click the Send to button, choose – say – Facebook, log into your account and story will appear on your wall with a link, thumbnail and so on.

Well fed
Google Reader is a great way to keep on top of websites that update their content regularly. Take it further by adding feeds from places such as Facebook, Youtube and Computeractive and it becomes a one-stop-shop for what’s happening on the web.