2 min read

RSS feeds

As you can tell from the posts already on the site I'm fond of using Newsblur. Not only will it pull feeds in from obviously published RSS links it'll also find some that you didn't know were there (add the web page to your list of feeds & see what happens). Sometimes there are hidden RSS feeds, which you can add to Newsblur if it can't manage by itself.

Twitter

Here's an easy one to start with, after all I've posted about it already. Use nitter to "follow" your twitter account of choice & use the link in the top right corner to find the URL for the RSS feed that nitter maintains for that account.

Reddit

If you want an RSS feed for a subreddit then all you need to do is add ".rss" to the end of the URL! It's really quite simple, once you know.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Mastodon.rss

Github

There are a whole set of feeds that you could extract, for your favourite repo. You can find a more extensive list here. 

Repo releases: https://github.com/:owner/:repo/releases.atom
Repo commits: https://github.com/:owner/:repo/commits.atom
Repo branch commits (e.g. master): https://github.com/:owner/:repo/commits/master.atom
User activities: https://github.com/:user.atom

Mastodon

https://<MastodonInstance>/@<UserName>.rss

Youtube

Use this recipe to follow the channel that you want a feed:

https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=<channel id>

As of 2022-06-23:

Open Chrome Dev Tools (F12), and in the "Elements" tab, within the source code pane, depending on URL type:

A. For channel URLs of type: www.youtube.com/c/<channel_name>:

Search for either:

or run in the console:

ytInitialData.metadata.channelMetadataRenderer.externalId

(credit: https://stackoverflow.com/a/68063136/624597)

B. For video URLs of type: www.youtube.com/watch?v=<video_ID>:

Search for either:

  • "externalId" - next to it there will be the channel_ID
  • "externalChannelId" - next to it there will be the channel_ID
  • "ownerProfileUrl" - next to it there will be: https://www.youtube.com/channel/<channel_ID>

or run in the console:

ytInitialPlayerResponse.microformat.playerMicroformatRenderer.externalChannelId

There will be another post soon, about how to process these Youtube RSS feeds so that there is minimal noise in your RSS reader. (It uses Huginn, of course)

Andy