What is RSS?

RSS stands for 'Really Simple Syndication' or 'Rich Site Summary', depending on whom you choose to believe. It's a service that enables websites to push content (or 'feeds') out to users and other websites. Users can thus keep abreast of changes to websites without needing to visit them, and website owners can publish content from other websites on their own site by simply clicking a link. Most major news sites such as the BBC, The Guardian, The New York Times and CNN, as well as many other smaller organisations, now provide content in the form of RSS feeds.

How Can I Use RSS?

To use RSS, you'll need a news reader. These come either as web-based services, as part of modern web browsers such as Firefox, Opera and Safari, or as stand-alone applications.

Depending on your choice, you can then subscribe to the content in various ways, such as dragging the URL of the RSS feed into your news reader or by cutting and pasting the URL into a new feed.