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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Combat article theft by delaying RSS feeds

I tried and succeeded in fighting back against RSS content scrapers by slightly delaying RSS feed publication.

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.

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.

Feed readers can be uniquely fingerprinted

Your list of RSS subscriptions is unique and it can be used to create a trackable and persistent device fingerprint.

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.

Best practices for syndication feed caching

Five best practices to reduce bandwidth requirements for feeds (Atom/RSS). Tips for reader and publisher implementations.

Syndication feed deltas help reduce subscription bandwidth costs

Feed delta updates strip away feed entries that the subscriber has already download and only transmits the update delta consisting of new entries.

Feed Delta Updates plugin for WordPress

Reduce the bandwidth cost of your WordPress RSS feeds using Feed Deltas.

Attack of the AppleNewsBot

A bug in the Apple News crawler caused it to get stuck in a loop sending 100+ requests/second to websites with HTTPS certificates issued by Let’s Encrypt.

Web browsers bring personalized news to their New Tab pages

New tabs in web browsers used to be just blank. Now there’s a rush to bring you news on the new tab.

Sleipnir browser focuses on news with Site Updates on New Tab page

Sleipnir auto-discovers RSS feeds from your most visited websites and curates a personal news feed on its New Tab page.