What is an RSS Feed?
Rediscover the open web with the technology that lets you control your news feed.
The Basics: What is RSS?
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a web standard that allows you to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format.
Imagine if instead of checking 20 different websites every morning to see if there's a new article, video, or post, you had a personal assistant who checked them all for you and presented a neat list of everything new. That "assistant" is an RSS Reader, and the "list" is the RSS Feed.
Why use RSS in 2026?
- No Algorithms: You decide what you see, not an engagement-maximizing AI.
- Privacy: Read content without being tracked across the web.
- Efficiency: Scan hundreds of headlines in minutes.
- Control: You own your feed list. No one can ban you or shadowban your favorite creators.
How It Works (The Technical Bit)
Behind the scenes, an RSS feed is just a text file written in XML (Extensible Markup Language). It exists on a server just like a webpage, but instead of being designed for humans to look at, it's designed for machines to read.
When a website publishes new content, it updates this XML file with the new item's title, description, link, and publication date. Your RSS reader checks this file periodically and downloads the new information.
How to Find RSS Links
Finding an RSS feed used to be easy. There was a big orange icon everywhere. Today, it's often hidden. Here is how you can find RSS feeds for your favorite sites, based on how we built our own detection logic.
Method 1: The Source Code Detective
Most modern websites still have RSS feeds, they just don't advertise them. You can find them by looking at the page source code.
- Right-click on the page and select View Page Source.
- Press Ctrl+F (or Cmd+F).
- Search for
rss,feed, oratom. - Look for a line that resembles:
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" href="..." />
Method 2: URL Patterns
Many major platforms follow predictable patterns. You can often guess the RSS link if you know the URL of the profile or page.
YouTube
YouTube hides its RSS feeds well, but they exist for every channel.
youtube.com/channel/UCsBjURrPoezykLs9EqgamOAbecomeshttps://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UCsBjURrPoezykLs9EqgamOAyoutube.com/user/Numberphilebecomeshttps://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?user=NumberphileReddit makes it incredibly easy. Just add .rss to almost any URL.
reddit.com/r/technologybecomeshttps://www.reddit.com/r/technology.rssreddit.com/user/spezbecomeshttps://www.reddit.com/user/spez.rssTumblr
Tumblr blogs usually just need /rss appended to the domain.
https://www.tumblr.com/hazyhhhbecomeshttps://hazyhhh.tumblr.com/rssweird-coby-core.tumblr.combecomeshttps://weird-coby-core.tumblr.com/rssStart Your Feed
RSS is the secret weapon of power users. It gives you raw, unfiltered access to the content you care about, without the distractions.
Ready to build your feed? VimRSS is designed to be the fastest way to consume this content.