What is reader software?

Reader software is a way of getting the most important part of a website — the content — delivered to you when new posts appear on a website, but without cluttering up your email inbox. Using reader software, you can track and read updates to as many websites as you like.

Reader software allows you to save time by not needing to visit each site individually. You ensure your privacy, by not needing to join each site's email newsletter.

Most blogging, news and information sites today have "feeds" (called RSS feeds) that are open to your reader software.

When you see this icon on a site, it means that a feed is available for you to pick up in your reader. You can usually click the icon to get your reader to automatically start collecting items from that site's feed.

What do I need to do to read an RSS Feed?

One of the easiest ways to get started with RSS is with a free web-based news reader. My Yahoo, Bloglines, and Google Reader are popular web-based feed readers.

There are also a number of applications that download and read news feeds on your computer. Some popular feed readers include Amphetadesk (Windows, Linux, Mac), FeedReader (Windows), and NewsGator (Windows - integrates with Outlook).

Text adapted from whatisrss.com