What is RSS? Why should I subscribe to it?

RSS feeds essentially allow sites to share their most recent headlines on a given topic with other sites and applications.

To save themselves time, many Internet users save several RSS feeds in one location called an RSS reader, some of which you can find below. This way they can browse headlines from different Web sites without having to visit each site individually.

RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication," and RSS feeds are just a specially coded type of Web page, designed to be read in a different way by Web browsers, or RSS "reader" software, instead of viewed directly.

RSS is growing rapidly in popularity, and many Web sites (including PilotOnline.com and HamptonRoads.com) offer multiple RSS feeds.

How do I start using RSS feeds?

In general, the first thing you need is something called a news reader. This is a piece of software that checks RSS feeds and lets you read any new articles that have been added to them. There are many different versions, some of which are accessed using a browser, and some of which are downloadable applications.

Browser-based news readers let you catch up with your RSS feed subscriptions from any computer, whereas downloadable applications let you store them on your main computer, in the same way that you either download your e-mail using Outlook, or keep it on a Web-based service like Hotmail.

Once you have chosen a news reader, all you have to do is decide what content you want to receive in your news reader, by finding and subscribing to the relevant RSS feeds.

If you click on the orange "RSS" button () or (), you can subscribe to the feed in various ways, including by dragging the URL of the RSS feed into your news reader or by cutting and pasting the same URL into a new feed in your news reader. Most sites that offer RSS feeds use a similar orange RSS button, but some may just have a normal Web link to the feed. Sometimes an RSS button will show up in your URL address bar. This means your browser has an built-in RSS reader. If you click the icon, you can add it to your browser's feed reader.

If you scroll down to the bottom of some of the HamptonRoads.com/PilotOnline story pages, like this one, you will file an RSS button linking to an RSS feed related to the topic of the article.

We listed some of the more popular RSS feed readers here. Feel free to add any that we missed or any that you like better in the comments.

Browsers with built-in RSS readers:
Mozilla Firefox
Opera
Internet Explorer 7
Safari (Mac)

Web-based RSS readers (free with registered account)
Bloglines
NewsGator

Downloadable software applications:
Feed Reader
Vienna (Mac)