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There's an RSS feed I want to subscribe. But when I open that in Safari, all I get is a blue page with text. I don't get the sense of RSS, this way. Do I need a fancy program that checks this RSS feed for updates frequently?

Also, I use Apple Mail. Someone said it is also for RSS. How could I use Mail that it tells me when there are new posts in an RSS feed?

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4 Answers

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There are many RSS readers for the Mac.

Safari and Mail are built into the OS X.

Firefox also does RSS feeds in bookmarks and with a plugin.

There are free options like Vienna and NetNewsWire.

There are pay options like NewsFire and NewsLife.

There are multi-service readers like Socialite.

There are web-based options like Google Reader.

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I use Google Reader, very easy to use, you just need to add the RSS adress to "Add a Subscribtion" button on the top left, and its done.

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I just use NetNewsWire on my Mac. It syncs directly with Google reader which makes it handy if you want to view RSS feeds on any computer. Just download NetNewsWire and get a Google account (if you don't have 1), then just log in with that so it can sync the first time. Then you just have to click on RSS in the address bar of a page and it opens the program automatically and you just need to click subscribe.

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In Safari, if you bookmark a feed page and it or the folder it's in is in the bookmarks toolbar, there will be a number in parentheses showing the number of new articles. (I don't find this very useful.)

In Mail, either (a) click the + button for "Add RSS Feeds..." or, in Safari, set the "Default RSS reader" to Mail (then the RSS button and any other feed link will go to Mail); feeds will appear like they were mailboxes.

I use NetNewsWire, myself.

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