Do you still use RSS? If you don’t, you’re missing out. Yes, RSS is still around and it’s (still) awesome. Not only it allows you to subscribe to your favorite websites but you can also use it to follow people on Twitter and Instagram without an account and even subscribe to YouTube channel without an account.
If that’s not enough for you, today we’re going to take it a step further. Let’s see how we can use RSS to follow Reddit subs without an account and even subscribe to newsletters without using an email account. At least not a personal one.
Before we start, I assume you already have an RSS reader ( not to be confused with a RSS agregator ). If you don’t, do your research and pick one. If it helps, on macOS I use NetNewsWire and on Linux I use newsboat and NewsFlash ( I’ve replaced Liferea with NewsFlash for now ).
Ok, now that you have picked a RSS reader, let’s start with Reddit since this one is super easy.
Let’s say you want to follow /r/sports/. The link for that sub is https://www.reddit.com/r/sports/.
To follow this sub ( or any sub, this is just an example ) via RSS, all you have to do is replace the last forward slash with .rss. So, the link becomes https://www.reddit.com/r/sports.rss.
The only problem with the reddit-to-rss method woult be that, if you want to see a post on any sub you subscribe to, you’d still have to go to reddit. The reader won’t pull some content and the comments.
Just the sub, who posted, title and the post itself. Unless it’s just a video. And images are usually just thumbnails.
Still beats the hell out of visiting the overbloated reddit page just to see what’s new. Trust me, unless you like to kill 30 minutes or so lookingat cute puppies or stupid memes, reddit is not THAT interesting. Out of 100 posts on a sub of interest, 5 maybe 10 are actually useful. And that’s a good day.
Now let’s move to newsletters. Why would you subscribe to newsletters? If you subscribe just because you get a free ebook ( which is NEVER really that helpful and will NEVER EVER reveal any secrets ) or to receive a 10% discount code, there are much better options. Like disposable email accounts.
But if you actually care about what that particular newsletter has to offer, subscribing via RSS is a much much better idea than subscribing with your email. Even if it’s a “spam”-only or “junk”-only email account.
So how to subscribe to newsletters via RSS?
1. Visit Kill the Newsletter
2. Name your newsletter. Ex: Tech, Literature, Fashion. I’ll name this one Tech and click on Create Inbox
3. When you click on Create Inbox you will get two things: an email to use when you subscribe to the newsletter(s) and an atom feed link that you will import into your feed reader.
Another important piece of info on this page is the warning below the atom feed link. Do not share these addresses. And, no… I’m not using the ones in these screenshots.
4. Now you can use the generated email address and atom feed link to subscribe to all the newsletters you want, or you can create another inbox and another one and so on, to have a structure in your feed. One for tech, one for fashion, one for literature etc.
Just make sure you save your email addresses and channels somewhere. I suggest using Joplin. Or if you want to pay for basic functionality, use Standard Notes.
Now let’s see the Newsletter-to-RSS in action.
1. First import the provided Atom url into your RSS reader. Same deal as before, no need for another screenshot.
2. Once the link is imported, you will notice a new item in the feed. Just in case you didn’t save the email address before. However, don’t realy on this feed item. It’s always better to have backups.
3. Using the provided email address, subscribe to newsletter like you’d normally would, using your own email address.
4. Now if you’ve ever subscribed to any newsletter before, you know that you’ll need to confirm your identity by clicking on a link in the email sent by the newsletter service.
So how to get into the inbox of the email provided by Kill the Newsletter? You don’t. The email will show up in your RSS feed. Just right click on the link or button, copy the link and paste it in your browser.
Pro tip: Kill the Newsletter is a brilliant service. And even though the service was released back in 2017, it’s still a service that’s maintained by one guy. So sooner or later it might be gone. It’s a good idea to keep a list of the newsletter you’re subscribed to. Just in case.
That being said, Kill the Newsletter it’s open source, and anybody can fork it if the dev decides to step away.
That’s pretty much it. Enjoy!
