Web Browsers
A deeper dive into Chrome WebFeed
Google hasn’t turned Chrome into a feed reader, but it does use Atom and RSS feeds to let visitors follow any website. Here are more details on how it works.
Syndication feeds
Web Browsers
Chrome experiment lets you Follow news and website updates
A brief history of where news/syndication feeds (“RSS“) went wrong, and how Google Chrome might just have found the right place for it in the Chrome web browser.
Security
Superfeedr sends logins in plain-text (a HSTS case study)
Superfeedr tried securing its website with HTTPS and HSTS, but failed to apply it correctly. User emails and credentials are sent in plain-text on the first login.
Syndication feeds
FeedBurner stirs in its slumber to announce more feature deprecations
Google FeedBurner (the RSS enhancer and analytics suite) hasn’t received much attention in the last decade. Google now deprecates feed-to-email and more features.
Apache HTTPD
Make changes to static content with response body substitutions
Tweak the HTTP response body with regex substitutions. Apache HTTPD configuration example shows changing the URL tracking parameters in a syndication feed file.
Syndication feeds
Many feed readers don’t handle plain text with XML-entities correctly
Plain text isn’t HTML. Many clients decode it as XML and then strip away the resulting HTML anyway. The spec is clear, but many implementations are buggy.
Copyright
Combat article theft by delaying RSS feeds
I tried and succeeded in fighting back against news feed (‘RSS’) content scrapers by slightly delaying the publication of my feeds.
Podcasts
Pocket Casts’ desktop apps are okay
I listen to podcasts at my desk, and Pocket Casts’ new desktop apps (based on their web apps) means I don’t need my smartphone to enjoy them comfortably.
Open Standards
New Google Podcasts app: who needs data portability anyway?
The new Google Podcast app doesn’t play well with other podcast apps. It doesn’t support some podcast standards, or importing or exporting subscriptions.
Web Analytics
Feed readers can be uniquely fingerprinted
Your list of news feed (‘RSS’) subscriptions is unique and it can be used to create a trackable and persistent device fingerprint.
Hypertext
Always care for old links after moving domain and reorganizing URLs
Create a URL transition-plan and create redirects for old URLs. Take a few minutes to avoid losing traffic when you move domain names or reorganize your URLs.
HTTP Caching
Best practices for syndication feed caching
Five best practices to reduce bandwidth requirements for feeds (Atom/RSS). Tips for reader and publisher implementations.