RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. Websites can syndicate news items by making an RSS news feed available on their site. Using a News Reader allows you to view the news feeds you have subscribed to.

Not all websites currently provide RSS, but it is growing rapidly in popularity and many organisations, including the BBC, Guardian, New York Times and CNN do provide it.

How do I start using RSS feeds?

To view your RSS news you will need a News Reader, sometimes known as a 'news aggregator' . There are many different versions, some of which are accessed using a browser, and some of which are downloadable applications. All of them allow you to display and subscribe to the RSS feeds you want.

Once you have chosen a News Reader, all you have to do is to decide what content you want. For example, if you would like to receive the latest news from this site simply click on the link button within the News area.

If you click on the button you can subscribe to the feed in various ways, including by dragging the URL of the RSS feed into your News Reader or by cutting and pasting the same URL into a new feed in your News Reader.

Some browsers, including Firefox, Opera and Safari, have built in functionality which automatically picks up RSS feeds for you. For more details on these, please check their websites.

How do I get a News Reader?

There are a range of different News Readers available and new versions are appearing all the time.

Different News Readers work on different operating systems, so you will need to take this into account when you make your choice.

Windows
Newz Crawler
FeedDemon
Awasu

Mac OS X
Newsfire
NetNewsWire

Web
Bloglines
My Yahoo!
NewsGator