RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication." It's a way for websites to publish updates that you can subscribe to — like following an account, but without an algorithm deciding what you see.
How it works
Most blogs, news sites, and even YouTube channels have an RSS feed. When you subscribe to a feed, new articles show up in a chronological list. No ads, no algorithm, no engagement tricks.
FreshRSS is the RSS reader in your Terrarium. It checks your subscribed feeds for new articles on a schedule and shows them in a clean reading interface.
FreshRSS signs you in automatically when you open it from your dashboard, so there's no login page.
Adding your first feed
Paste a website's ordinary address and FreshRSS finds its feed. Add a website to FreshRSS walks through it.
Good starter feeds
- Tech: Ars Technica (
feeds.arstechnica.com/arstechnica/index), Hacker News (news.ycombinator.com/rss) - News: NPR (
feeds.npr.org/1001/rss.xml), BBC (feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml) - Newsletters: Many email newsletters have RSS feeds — check the footer or about page
- YouTube: Every YouTube channel has an RSS feed at
youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=CHANNEL_ID
Reading articles
FreshRSS shows articles in a list. Click one to read it. You can mark articles as read, star them for later, or open the original page in a new tab.
The interface works well on both desktop and mobile browsers. To read in a phone app instead, see Read your feeds on your phone.