Why can't I subscribe to RSS feeds in Firefox?

January 16, 2005 6:03 PM

I am having a bit of trouble using RSS on Firefox. Whenever I click on one of the little orange RSS boxes, I am taken to a page which states, at the top, "This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below." followed by a code listing that I presume is the document tree mentioned above. Am I supposed to do something with that?

I suspect there is a real simple answer to this that will make me look like a dork, but I can cope with that if it results in figuring this out.
posted by John Smallberries to Computers & Internet (10 answers total)

Sure thing. You may first want to make sure you understand what RSS is. Then you might want to pick up Sage, an extension for FireFox that allows you to browse RSS.
posted by onalark at 6:12 PM on January 16, 2005

Firefox can deal with RSS internally using Live Bookmarks, which I thought sucked when I used them. Sage sucks a little less. I like Bloglines a whole lot more and it works with any browser.
posted by grouse at 6:14 PM on January 16, 2005

Best answer: 1. Copy the URL that ends with .rss
2. Bookmarks menu: Mange bookmarks
3. File menu: New live bookmark
4. Paste
5. Dork!
6. ;^)
posted by squirrel at 6:18 PM on January 16, 2005

Response by poster: 1. Thanks much, guys!

2. Doh!

Or vice versa.

/stumbles off to watch reality television because it is so real.
Heh.
posted by John Smallberries at 6:23 PM on January 16, 2005

Thats all very well, but hardly automagic. Why have the orange button, if you have to do all that stuff?

I still have occasional trouble with RSS, but it seems to work OK on most sites these days, and I don't have Sage installed.
posted by dash_slot- at 6:27 PM on January 16, 2005

Why have the orange button, if you have to do all that stuff?

So you know the site has a RSS feed and have an easy way of obtaining its URL. However, a better way is for the browser to be informed of the feed via a LINK tag in the document's head. Then it can show a little icon in the toolbar that automatically subscribes to the feed for you. Modern browsers are beginning to offer such functionality.
posted by kindall at 6:29 PM on January 16, 2005

Firefox 1.0 for OS X (kneel!) offers this. Juct click on the little orage button and you get an add live bookmark dialogue.
posted by squirrel at 8:05 PM on January 16, 2005

There should be an orange icon in the bottom status bar. (There's one on this page.) Click that.
posted by smackfu at 8:23 PM on January 16, 2005

Yes - the little orange "XML" icons strewn throughout web pages are simply links to the feed url.

The "LiveLines" extension claims to add one-click support for bloglines and a few other aggregators to the Firefox 1.0 status bar RSS button (the white dot with the radiating lines on an orange background), so when you click that button, it subscribes you with the service instead of adding a live bookmark. I haven't tried it yet.
posted by Caviar at 7:42 AM on January 17, 2005

I know it's not the best solution, but I applied css into rss w/ a little explanation about rss (sorry it's in japanese!). I hope this helps visitors what to do.
posted by yhassy at 12:52 PM on January 17, 2005