Free Republic

Just wondering - has FR considered implementing an RSS feed? One that would alert to pings and mail, and maybe threads deemed important, would, I think, facilitate discussion here, without having to constantly check back.

People have been asking for a free republic RSS feed ( RSS FAQ ) for quite some time and while there isn't a traditional graphic there is a hidden meta tag which the new FireFox 1.0 browser discovered. Which means that if you're a newsfeed user you can finally subscribe directly to the free republic forums here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/browse.rss

NEW YORK - E-mail is crippled, concussed by an irrepressible spam stream. Web surfing can be equally confounding, a wobbly wade through bursts of pop-ups and loudmouthed video ads. And that may explain the excitement these days over a somewhat crude but nifty software tool that automatically delivers updated information to your computer directly from your favorite Web sites. Enthusiasts see these Web feeds as sketching the outline of the next Net revolution. The technology behind them is called RSS and I rely on it daily to consult The New York Times, the BBC, CNET News, Slashdot and a few...

Do you spend a fair amount of time hitting 'refresh' to keep up to date with the current news from Free Republic. If so, you might consider this free & efficient alternative that will automatically keep you on top of the news, “FreeRSS”. RSS or ‘Really Simple Syndication’ is an internet format that lets news sites publish a index of current stories with brief descriptions and links to the main stories. Because the readers only view full stories if they are interested in the topic, this saves bandwidth and time. RSS feeds are available from almost every major news site...

If you aren't familiar with the technology, RSS is a method for news & opinion sites (such as this one) to publish an index of new topics in XML such that visitors to the site can get regular updates using a news aggregator client (such as 'Feedreader'). The benefit to the user is that they don't need to continually refresh their browser because the reader just checks the index every couple minutes and lets the user know if any new topics exist. They can stay on top of hundreds of sites without any effort and can instantly go to a...