Back to RSS

I have decided to go back to consuming RSS feeds for information. I was a heavy user of Google Reader. Once it shut down, I moved over to the Digg Reader. When I say I was a heavy user, I would open the app every morning and check out what was on the list. I had that routine for a good seven years. After that, I ended up focusing more on getting that information on Twitter. The pandemic has made me realize what I have been feeling for the last couple of years. That the high-value conversations/discussions that I thought that I got out of social media and even attending conferences just wasn’t there. It feels strange to say that.

With that given, that is why I am writing this post. RSS feeds to provide me the content that I want to focus on without all the oddities that come with getting that information on social platforms. I also feel that I am going to have to take the self-hosted journey to solve this problem. I am tired of services that I use, both free and paid, shutting down and leaving me without a solution. Not only is that a big issue, privacy, and being the product has increased in importance to me. I don’t mind paying for a service if I know they respect my privacy and don’t make me the product. Sometimes it is just too tempting not to do. I also value using services that are rooted in open source. It gives me confidence and also contributes to the knowledge of the greater community.

Let’s talk about solutions. After searching for options that provide a website and a mobile app, I have settled on experimenting with Tiny Tiny RSS. It has a mobile app, a complete Docker setup, and is GPL licensed, matching my critical criteria. I think I will use a cloud provider that isn’t one of the big three for my hosting. The hosting is currently between Linode or Digital Ocean. Both provide what I need at the same price for the same specs. Digital Ocean does have additional services that I may want to leverage. I just haven’t decided if I need those or not. Expect more posts on this topic as I dig into it.

Thanks for reading,

Jamie

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