How to read any RSS feed in your browser
2 min read
You do not need a feed reader to read one feed. You need the address of the feed and a browser tab.
What a feed is
RSS and Atom are XML files. A site publishes one with its latest posts or podcast episodes. A feed reader polls many of these files for you, but you can read a single feed without a reader.
Find the feed address
Most sites make the address easy to find. Try these places:
- A link labeled RSS or Feed, often in the footer or the page header.
- The paths
/feed,/rss, or/atom.xmlon the site. - The RSS link on a podcast's page at its host.
Copy the address. It is a normal URL that ends in a file name or a short path.
Open it
Go to the RSS Feed Viewer, or open the XML editor in the app and choose Paste RSS URL on the empty XML view. The URL button opens the same dialog. Paste the address.
Prettify fetches the feed from your browser. Some sites block that kind of request. If a site does, Prettify asks before it uses a public proxy. It does not use the proxy without your answer.
When the feed loads, the tab takes the feed's title.
Read it
The Feed view shows each item as an article, with its title, date, author, and links. Podcast artwork shows when images are on. A large feed shows its first 200 items.
The Feed view is a Pro feature. You can try it free once a day. The try is kept in your browser, not in an account. The Tree and Raw views of the XML are free.
Why images are off
Images stay off until you choose Load images. You choose per feed and per tab.
Every image is a request to the server that hosts it. That server learns your IP address and the time you read the item. Some feeds add tracking pixels for this purpose. With images off, none of those requests happen.
Keep it current
Refresh from URL fetches the latest version of the feed from the same address. Refresh from URL is a Pro feature, with one free try per day. Prettify does not refresh in the background. The feed changes only when you ask it to.
Do more with the data
A feed is data, and Prettify treats it that way. You can convert the feed to JSON in one click. This is free. To tidy the raw XML first, use the XML Formatter. You can also query it with XPath, which is a Pro feature.
For the story of a bug a large podcast feed exposed, read how a 5 MB podcast feed became 182 MB.