I definitely see the author's points in this article, but I disagree with the proposed solution. Feed discoverability should be a basic browser feature, not something web developers need to actively implement.
I have made an extension that parses the <link> tags and puts back the feed icon where it's supposed to be (on the right side of the URL bar), and also renders the feeds properly rather than just spitting out the raw XML: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/rss-viewer/
This is how the web used to work 10 years ago. The <link> tag has a purpose: it instructs browsers that the current page has a feed, so the browser can parse it and show a feed button to the user. Both Firefox and Chrome used to work this way 10 years ago.
Then motherfucking evil Google began its war against feeds. It killed Google Reader first, then it removed the feed icon from their browser. Firefox quickly complied too.
Let's make it clear once and for all: yes, I, can add an RSS URL to my website to make discoverability easier, but it's not my job as a web developer to make feed discoverability easier. That's just a workaround. My job as a web developer should be to provide the right <link> element, and then the browser should know what to do with it. Expecting web developers to make their feeds easily discoverable is like expecting web developers to implement radio and toggle buttons from scratch in JavaScript+CSS: nobody does these things anymore, they're supposed to be native browser features, right?
And, as a user, I shouldn't write my custom JavaScript to parse the feed URL from the DOM. Just like I'm not expected to write my JS user script to get the title of the page. If the browsers refuse to provide such basic features, then it's a browser problem. I would say "choose a browser that natively supports feeds", but there's none left. So use extensions to mitigate the impact of feed-hostile browser politics.
https://rknight.me/please-expose-your-rss/
Fabio Manganiello /
npub1v7…ukv0u
2023-12-11 09:10:58
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npub1v78mmuz20p6qd6nve30axhqu74avwn4f6z4grhug7755rat7wh3syukv0uPublished at
2023-12-11 09:10:58Event JSON
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"content": "I definitely see the author's points in this article, but I disagree with the proposed solution. Feed discoverability should be a basic browser feature, not something web developers need to actively implement.\n\nI have made an extension that parses the \u003clink\u003e tags and puts back the feed icon where it's supposed to be (on the right side of the URL bar), and also renders the feeds properly rather than just spitting out the raw XML: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/rss-viewer/\n\nThis is how the web used to work 10 years ago. The \u003clink\u003e tag has a purpose: it instructs browsers that the current page has a feed, so the browser can parse it and show a feed button to the user. Both Firefox and Chrome used to work this way 10 years ago.\n\nThen motherfucking evil Google began its war against feeds. It killed Google Reader first, then it removed the feed icon from their browser. Firefox quickly complied too.\n\nLet's make it clear once and for all: yes, I, can add an RSS URL to my website to make discoverability easier, but it's not my job as a web developer to make feed discoverability easier. That's just a workaround. My job as a web developer should be to provide the right \u003clink\u003e element, and then the browser should know what to do with it. Expecting web developers to make their feeds easily discoverable is like expecting web developers to implement radio and toggle buttons from scratch in JavaScript+CSS: nobody does these things anymore, they're supposed to be native browser features, right?\n\nAnd, as a user, I shouldn't write my custom JavaScript to parse the feed URL from the DOM. Just like I'm not expected to write my JS user script to get the title of the page. If the browsers refuse to provide such basic features, then it's a browser problem. I would say \"choose a browser that natively supports feeds\", but there's none left. So use extensions to mitigate the impact of feed-hostile browser politics.\n\nhttps://rknight.me/please-expose-your-rss/",
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