Posts from @natebowie's blog

Turning a Physical Book/Doc into an ebook/doc with OCR

natebowie — Wed, 31 May 2023 00:14:12 GMT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjVXKuySF5Y

Here I go into how to scan physical books and documents, run optical character recognition (OCR) using Tesseract to make those scans searchable, and optionally dump that text into a text file that can be shared or converted into another format (such as an epub). There’s a few way s to go about this, and I go over a few different alternatives, but I personally prefer to use the ocrmypdf tool which uses Tesseract to run OCR on a PDF, then use poppler utilities to convert the PDF into a text document.

Usually I would do a post in both video and written form, but in this case I think most of the value is me recording the process. If this is something that would interest you then the video would probably be best.

That said, to summarize everything we can use Tesseract bundled with some tools to convert a PDF of a scanned book or document into a PDF that has searchable text and is readable by TTS software and other accessibility software. Optionally, we also have the ability to dump the text itself from that PDF to save space or turn it into something like a web page or an EPUB ebook.

There are a few ways to go about this. The best way (IMO) is to use the OCRmyPDF and Poppler Utils software, however, they are limited to Linux. If you're on Windows or Mac there's a few options to achieve the same results:

James Villemaret wrote a Python Script (Convert.py) that does a very good job at at getting very similar results on Windows using Tesseract and a few other peices of software. This works on Windows only, and is a tad more complicated of a setup though.

There is also the Windows Subsystem for Linux, which can run Linux software from within Windows as of you're running it on Linux, which is probably the best way assuming you're fine with the learning curve that comes with it. Last, of course on any operating system a virtual machine with shared folders can accomplish these tasks just fine as well.

If you're already well versed with this sort of stuff this quick summary might be all you need to jump in, but if you're not and still interested the resources section and video above might be worth checking out.

Resources:
Convert.py Tutorial
Convert.py
Setting up a Debian VM*
*you only need ~1-2 GB of ram and ~8-12 GB of storage
Calibre
Libre Office

Commands (requires Debian or Debian based OS, VM, or Subsystem)
OCR Tool install command: apt install ocrmypdf
PopplerUtils install command: apt install poppler-utils
ORC a PDF: ocrmypdf [filelocation, eg: ./input.pdf] [outputfilename]
PDF to Text: pdftotext [filelocation, eg: ./OCRed_imput.pdf] [outputfilename]

10 Years on Linux

natebowie — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 01:00:51 GMT

A little over a decade ago Windows 8 was entirely unusable for me. I’m not referring to the mobile-style UI and bloat that marked a change in Windows, but I mean unusable in the none dramatic sense of the word: i.e. I couldn’t get more than a day or two before my installation would brick itself. After many, many reinstalls and figuring out it was a particular update to blame, I went about trying to apply the band-aid approach that would at least give me more than a few hours worth of usage per OS installation before my computer bricked: which was trying to disable updates. I belt and suspenders approached it, both deferring updates in settings and set the WiFi network the device was connected to as a metered internet connection (or whatever the terminology was, it’s been a decade so I might have misremembered those terms).

Even if it was far from ideal, I was elated – my teenage self was a computer wiz that found a temporary fix rendering my computer useful again until a long-term fix was found. That sense of accomplishment quickly dissipated though, as shortly after when starting my computer I was greeted by an installing updates screen, followed by my computer bricking itself yet again. Despite disabling updates in two different ways, Microsoft came in and decided that my preferences didn’t apply because they deemed whatever update too important for some lowly peasant such as myself to refuse. After a lot of searching, I finally figured out how to truly remedy the problem by disabling the Windows update service altogether, but immediately decided I needed to find another solution – which brought me to the topic of this post: Linux.

From then on I had the pretty stereotypical Linux journey: i.e. installing Ubuntu and leveraging its ease of use and beginner friendliness, then a few months later pivoting to something that didn’t give me Amazon search results on my desktop. Sometime later Windows 8.1 came out, and while still Windows, at least was functional; and combined with my need for Windows specific software for school I stopped using Linux exclusively. While games and software for school, then college (Uni for you sophisticated Europeans), then work required Windows (often that I couldn’t get to work in Wine) I’ve gotten by using combinations of duel booting and VMs, never willing to switch back to Windows full time.

Today, in this post, I would like to go over why I use Linux, what I use, and some potential plans for future usage. I don’t have any particular goal to convince you of anything, nor do I guarantee this post will be perfectly cohesive and linear, but I want to chronicle my journey here and speak about what I use and why.

Part II: Why

Okay, so I went over why I initially gave Linux a go, but now that Windows is usable I wanted to go over why I still go out of my way to Linux it as opposed to something like Windows. I wanted to give it a fair bit of thought here, and really analyze it. To start I’ll list some things that aren’t truly why I’m going out of my way to run Linux.

First, I’m not on Linux because it’s more secure. Sure, much more malware is made for Windows desktops than Linux desktops, so you’re more likely to stumble upon malware for Windows; however, Windows also takes that into account and runs AV in the background all the time. AV does a good job at detecting old malware, so stumbling into old existing malware isn’t as huge of a risk as one might consider it. It’s the newly written malware by people who at least sort of know what they are doing that is the risk, stuff that won’t be detected by AV, and is well placed and/or targeted towards me. This could be generic targeting, such as malicious software in Google Adwords going after specific operating systems or keywords related to them, or a particular attack against me specifically. In either of those cases, both antivirus and security through obscurity would not provide me with much in terms of tangible benefits. Further, there are also plenty of cross platform programming languages (e.g. Java) that can effect any operating system in a similar way. For these reasons safety from malware comes down to user behavior, and I would not consider myself secure from malware on Linux.

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The Mullvad Browser is Neat

natebowie — Mon, 10 Apr 2023 09:15:24 GMT

Mullvad Browser

The other day I saw a post from the Tor Project about them collaborating with Mullvad on a browser project. It’s pretty much the Tor Browser without Tor, i.e. a fork of Firefox with the anti-finger printing and hardening features included.

Tor is obviously great for anonymizing your traffic, but in a lot of general day to day usage it’s not exactly the tool for the job. Generally speaking, unless you sign into a service or there’s a criminal investigation out somebody’s not going to be getting your identity from an IP address; so running the Mullvad browser in this case would be just as effective if you’re looking to get some privacy and a better experience when reading the news or other day to day web browsing.

The benefits that come with it pretty much boils down to into three different things:

First, it’s Firefox without the Mozilla. No telemetry, no pocket, auto cookie clearing set from the start, and no Google default. Just like projects like LibreWolf it takes the good and leaves out the bad.
Next, and what really sets it apart for privacy, is fingerprint protection done in two ways. First, if a large group of people are using the same browser with the same plugins and similar settings it gets a lot harder to fingerprint individual users. Further, it takes the anti-fingerprinting tools built into the Tor Browser (e.g. hiding screen resolution) which, as far as I know, makes it harder to finger print then just about any other browser regardless of how you configure it.
Last, it also takes on the Tor Browser’s hardening tools. You can easily set it up to block scripts and such on some or all websites, in addition to blocking ads and trackers, with the security slider like the Tor Browser. Not only is that a boost to privacy and security, but if you’ve never read the news without ads and JavaScript blocked you’re seriously missing out.

There are a few minor things to note that might be slight drawbacks. The project is new and might not be fully polished up (thought it seemed to work fine for me in my minor testing of it). Both the Linux and Windows verions seem to be portable applications masquerading as a regular programs, but again it’s new and in testing still.

Also, though really nit picky, is it’s pretty Mullvad themed. For example, when you check connection there’s a big not connected to Mullvad label if you’re not connected. It does feel a little cheesy, especially being not fully made by Mullvad and being a general tool not specific to their software; but nevertheless it works exactly the same without Mullvad VPN (both with other VPNs and no VPN at all). I guess though if they put a lot of effort into a project like this I can’t fault them too much for the branding.

Anyway, it’s a cool project I’ll continue to toy around with, and very well might end up using as my primary browser at some point. If you’re reading this and it sounds interesting then it’s definitely worth checking out.

$35 Chromebook to a full fledged laptop ➡️ Installing Another OS (revised ed.)

natebowie — Sun, 09 Apr 2023 09:55:27 GMT

https://youtu.be/_Ktlnf1RQCg

My previous video on this topic is sitting at nearly 3k views on YouTube, making it one of my most watched videos. Ironically, had some missing info in it, and almost immediately became outdated. This will hopefully provide some updated info.

Anyway, this is a revised version of my previous post on a similar topic. It's pretty easy to get a different operating system running on a chromebook and it's a great way to extent some functionality of a device or a way to get a secure operating system running once a chromebook runs out of updates. As a bonus, you can usually find used ones for dirt cheap (I got mine for $35).

Just like the last one, this is mostly just me talking about what I did and what your options are. It's not quite a tutorial per say, but hopefully with the resources listed above it's enough to help you look into whether a project like this is worth taking on. If you get stuck feel free to @ me in the comments or on the fediverse @natebowie@mastodon.social and I'll do my best to help in anyway I can.

Resources:
Gallium Wiki Compatibility Page
All about Appimages
Appimages in Portable Mode
DB Tech Gallium Installation Guide
Linux Basics
Rufus
Rufus Tutorial
Etcher
Linux Mint Complete Installation/Tutorial
Enable the "Non-Free" Repo in Debian

A couple random notes from editing:
First, I should have clarified better: things like sound are likely caused by hardware that's not quite run-of-the-mill. Things like WiFi are often times missing by default even on regular hardware on the Debian default installer since they try to keep everything open source.

Second, in the comments of my last video I was talking about how I was still getting security updates mid/late 2022 on Gallium. After glancing at the Github repo for the vid I don't think I was and was only getting application updates from the Gallium repo. Not 100% sure tho, bit of a moron as I said.

Last, forgot to mention about sound. I haven't gotten around to fiddling with sound yet, mine doesn't have any at the moment (just using Bluetooth for now when I want sound). I'll update this if I ever get around to toying around with it, but again, I was told Linux Mint did better with sound.

3 Structures of Private Messengers, how they work and their Pros/Cons

natebowie — Thu, 02 Feb 2023 11:33:06 GMT

Video Version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAx_C8_uLeI

Text Version

Today I thought I would talk about messengers, specifically, the different types of messengers and how they work. The goal here is to help give an understanding of various privacy and security focused messengers, but in order to make the right choice on which one you need to understand how they work and the differences under the hood. I guess I bring this up because often times in the privacy community you hear about metadata and a few other aspects like registration requirements, and then are given recommendations based on that. I don’t mean to throw shade or anything, and understanding that stuff is important in picking a private messaging platform, but personally I think it is vital to understand how any given messenger works before you choose one.

There are effectively three types of messengers in the wild: centralized messengers, federated & self hosted messengers, as well as peer to peer messengers. Sure, things have a habit of not fitting into neat little categories, but I hope I’ll be able to lay them out in an understandable way. Also, this is completely focused on the niche of private messengers, so for all these examples assume that end to end encryption is active.

With that, before I break down the different types of messengers, lets quickly go over how a message is sent. The structure obviously changes across messenger structures, however, the concept is still the same. The message starts on the sending device, which is typed up and then encrypted so nobody can read it except the intended recipient. Lets say we sent it from one phone to another, the message is encrypted on that phone, sent through one or more servers, received by the intended recipient, and then de-crypted by the recipient on their phone or other device they are using. Now, I know you might be thinking, “but wait, peer to peer messengers don’t go through servers,” and while it’s true they don’t go through messenger servers they do go through the internet which is made up of servers and switches that send that encrypted message in packets, so there is still devices to consider.

With this understood, picking a messenger structure really comes down to the following questions:

Does my messenger require identifying information to setup?
How much metadata is created, and how much of it is stored?
How easy can the messenger be taken offline?
Can the messenger intercept my data if it was compromised or malicious?
Do I want to self host my messenger, or, would I prefer a trusted third party unaffiliated with the messenger hosted my data?
Is my IP hidden from the messenger host and/or from the person I’m messaging?
Can my device be online 24/7, or, can I wait for messages to be delivered?
How much data do I want to be in control of?

Centralized Messengers

Alright, now we can start getting into the three types of messengers, starting with centralized messengers. These function when you register with a centralized service which handles the distribution of messages. In this case, the message would be encrypted on your device so only your recipient can read the message, the message would then be sent from your device through an ISP to the messenger host, which accepts the incoming message. The messenger then holds on to the encrypted message, but cannot read it, until it sees the recipient is online where it send it through the recipient’s ISP to their device before their device (and only their device) de-crypts it and reads the message.

A good example of this centralized messengers is Signal, which I’ll use to demonstrate it’s pro’s and cons. First, like in Signal’s case, it’s really easy to set up an account. You don’t need to try to host anything or have a process on your device running 24/7, you just register and Signal handle’s all the legwork in the background. It also will hold any messages you send, and will deliver them the second the recipient is online. With a server routing the messages the IP address of the message sender is also not revealed to the receiver of the message.

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Would Creators Benefit from RSS? (IMO, yes)

natebowie — Wed, 14 Dec 2022 11:25:27 GMT

Quick Tip:
You can get a feed for your own Hive.Blog profile by sharing
https://hiverss.com/[@yourname]/blog
such as:
https://hiverss.com/@natebowie/blog

Okay, so this is my fourth and last article covering RSS feeds. If you’ve been following me through each time on RSS I covered how/why I use RSS feeds, how to get/create feeds for most services, how to create/host your own feed, and finally I want to propose why I think feeds might be a valuable tool for content creators.

I will leave links above if you haven't seen them and aren't familiar with feeds, but to give a quick summary of a feed: A feed is a file hosted like a web page, but instead of being loaded in a browser it is loaded in a feed reader. It’s composed of items which are links to different pieces of content. Those items can be anything from YouTube videos to Tweets, and when clicked on in the feed reader they will be opened based on what they are (such as YouTube videos being loaded in the YouTube app unless the user configures otherwise). Most feeds are generated by a platform/service, such as a feed generated by YouTube that lists a channel’s video as they are created, but a feed created by a content creator could include anything and everything that the content creator wants to include in it and is not restricted to one platform or service.

Why This Might Be Good

This has a number of benefits, the first of which being a custom feed with content hand picked by the creator opens up a lot more possibilities. Say somebody is a YouTuber who mostly posts videos on YouTube, and each time they do they add it to their feed. But, then the have a collaboration or guest appearance on another channel and want to share that. Or maybe they plan to do something like a giveaway, but want to avoid strict rules on it by operating the giveaway on another platform. Or maybe they have one foot out of the door on YouTube but are still getting the best ad revenue there and want to continue to drive traffic to their YouTube channel, but also want to be able to switch their “main” platform on a moment’s notice. Or maybe they just wrote an article for an outlet and want to link to it. The ability to have at least a portion of people consuming content via a feed would be great in allowing a creator to step outside of any particular walled garden and provide different content or different formats without having to scrap the idea of any particular service.

Secondly, and in my opinion more importantly, it would be your part of the web. Especially if you’re hosting it with a domain that you own, delivering content from your own setup means that you’re outside of any walled gardens and not beholden to any one company or group. I’m not necessarily going to defend everyone who gets kicked off of platforms, but take the case of Coffeezilla for example. As far as I’m aware he’s a pretty tame guy, and the only people he’d upset are probably the scammers he looks into, but for whatever reason one night the bots deleted his account. He got his account back soon, but the ability to control your own content delivery system in a case like that could be very handy. Even if your backlog of content dissipated, and even if it was resolved eventually, to be able to get the word out and carry on in the mean time could be great.

Last, of course, it wouldn’t need to disrupt anything else already going on. If you post mostly on one platform, you can share it to your followers or subscribers and then those who want to follow you through the feed get the benefits, and those who don’t still have the exact same situation as they had before. This isn’t some zero sum setup where it caused problems for anybody who didn’t want to use it.

How You’d Go About It

So, if I’ve peaked your interest you might be thinking that it’s worth considering if it’s not too hard or problematic to set up. Well, luckily, it’s not. You have three different ways of going about this, from easiest to hardest, and while I feel the more work you put in the more benefit you can get out of it, luckily even the hardest isn’t more than two or three minutes of work tops per piece of content you put out.

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Creating Hostable RSS Feeds from Scratch

natebowie — Tue, 06 Dec 2022 11:32:12 GMT

Video Version

https://youtu.be/z5R7z0C_onU

Text Version

After a little trial and error I’ve found what I think is the best way to manually create an RSS file for self hosting a feed that can encompass any content you want to publish in it. I’m using it for my blog given I’ve built my site from scratch with plain HTML, but you can use RSS for pretty much anything.

Begin by creating a text file. You can name it anything you want, but I called mine feed.xml. Next, copy the code below into it. You can replace the title, link, and description with whatever fit’s your feed.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<rss version="2.0">
    <channel>
    <title>Nate Bowie's Blog</title>
    <link>http://nathankmbowie.com/blog.html</link>
    <description>A quick homebrew feed for my blog. Does not include videos/articles I work on, just very occasional content.</description>
</channel>
</rss>

Once you’ve got it all set, your next step is to start adding content. Take the code below and copy it to your feed. Go to the end of the description, press enter to create a new line in the document, and paste the new set of code in. Replace the title with the title of the item you added into the feed, replace the time with the approximate time of the post, replace the link with the link you want to send the reader to, and replace the description with your own description.

        <item>
     <title>Placeholder1</title>
     <pubDate>Thur, 13 Oct 2022 19:00:00 -0700</pubDate>
     <link>https://nathankmbowie.com/blog.html#mozTocId86197</link>
     <description>This is just a quick placeholder. I havn't actually copied over any of my old posts or created any new ones yet.</description>
   
   
   
    </item>

Once you have pasted in the item code to add to the feed your code should look like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<rss version="2.0">
    <channel>
    <title>Nate Bowie's Blog</title>
    <link>http://nathankmbowie.com/blog.html</link>
    <description>A quick homebrew feed for my blog. Does not include videos/articles I work on, just very occasional content.</description>
        <item>
     <title>Placeholder1</title>
     <pubDate>Thur, 13 Oct 2022 19:00:00 -0700</pubDate>
     <link>https://nathankmbowie.com/blog.html#mozTocId86197</link>
     <description>This is just a quick placeholder. I havn't actually copied over any of my old posts or created any new ones yet.</description>
   
   
   
    </item>
</channel>
</rss>

Now each time you want to add a new item you just paste the same item code as the just like the original time, always adding it on top the previous item code. For example, after adding a second entry it would look something like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<rss version="2.0">
    <channel>
    <title>Nate Bowie's Blog</title>
    <link>http://nathankmbowie.com/blog.html</link>
    <description>A quick homebrew feed for my blog. Does not include videos/articles I work on, just very occasional content.</description>
        <item>
     <title>Placeholder2</title>
     <pubDate>Thur, 13 Oct 2022 19:00:00 -0700</pubDate>
     <link>https://nathankmbowie.com/blog.html#mozTocId86197</link>
     <description>This is just a quick placeholder. I havn't actually copied over any of my old posts or created any new ones yet.</description>
   
   
   
    </item>
        <item>
     <title>Placeholder1</title>
     <pubDate>Thur, 13 Oct 2022 19:00:00 -0700</pubDate>
     <link>https://nathankmbowie.com/blog.html#mozTocId86197</link>
     <description>This is just a quick placeholder. I havn't actually copied over any of my old posts or created any new ones yet.</description>
   
   
   
    </item>
</channel>
</rss>

With your feed all set you can now go on to do whatever with it. Just host it and direct readers/listeners/watchers to the feed URL (if you don’t have a host try hosting for free with GitHub) and they will automatically get updates whenever you update the file.

Get RSS Feeds for Nearly Anything

natebowie — Sun, 20 Nov 2022 01:36:51 GMT

Video Version

https://youtu.be/ywiW42LBzjs

Text Version

I wrote a bit about feeds already, namingly why feeds are The Best™, how to make a self hosted feed from scratch, and why I think creators can benefit from feeds. That said, this is all about how to get an RSS feed for various services. Some natively support it and some we have to jump through some hoops, but by the end hopefully you should know how to subscribe to most platforms you might want to follow. As a rule, I’d like to avoid listing out any method that requires you register on a third party site in order to get/generate an RSS feed. Anyway, lets get started.

First off, let’s start with video sharing platforms:

How to get a YouTube channel RSS feed:
The simplest way to subscribe to YouTube with RSS is to go to the YouTube channel’s home page, view the page source (generally by right clicking and choosing “view source”), and search “xml”. The last time it appears on the site (generally the fourth time) is a link, which can be copied and added to a feed reader. Additionally, apps like NewPipe or browser extensions can get the feed link as well.

A feed can also be gotten from an Invidious instance (a YouTube front end that blocks ads and increases privacy), and from OpenRSS.org.

How to get an Odysee, a PeerTube, or 3Speak.tv Channel RSS Feed:
On Odysee, PeerTube, and 3Speak there is a subscribe via RSS option on each channel page – no extra effort required.

How to get a Bitchute RSS feed:
Bitchute has a tutorial in their FAQ, but it all boils down to going https://www.bitchute.com/feeds/rss/channel/[channel], replacing [channel] with whatever comes after /channel when opening the channel’s home page.

How to get a Rumble RSS feed:
The platform Rumble will give you an RSS feed link themselves if you pay for a premium account. However, an RSS feed can also be generated with OpenRSS.org for free without any registration.

How to get a Patreon RSS feed:
Surprisingly, it is possible to get a feed for Patreon content, but it’s pretty limited. You first need to subscribe to the content with a Patreon account, then the creator must have enabled the RSS feature to create an individualized RSS feed for each subscriber.

I had no luck being able to generate a feed for D.Tube, Daily Motion, and Utreon unfortunately.

Written Content:

Beyond video platforms, however, are blogs, news sites, and other text based content. There’s a lot of platforms so I figured I would list off as many as I can, though luckily for a lot of them there’s not a lot of complications to getting an RSS feed.

How to get a WordPress RSS feed:
Most WordPress blogs will have a feed listed on their home page, but if they don’t go to the main site and then type /rss (e.g. example.com/rss). You can also do this for various tags by going to the tag’s page and adding /rss to the end of the URL.

How to get a Blogspot / Blogger RSS Feed:
While there’s the option to create a feed button on a Blogspot site, all of them will have RSS enabled. Simple go to the main page and then paste /feeds/posts/default?alt=rss after the URL (e.g. example.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss).

How to get a Medium RSS Feed:
A Medium feed for an author can be gotten by going to the author’s page and adding /feed to the URL.

How to get a Hive.Blog RSS Feed:
While Hive doesn’t support RSS natively, using HiveRSS.com you can create a feed for a user, topic, and a whole bunch more. An RSS feed for a username can be created by going to hiverss.com/@USERNAME/feed, but the HiveRSS.com website has a lot more in depth info for a bunch of different customization you can set up.

How to get a Tumblr RSS Feed:
In order to get an RSS Feed from a Tumblr blog just navigate to the blog’s main page and add /rss to the end of the URL.

How to get an RSS feed for most news sites:
Most news sites have RSS support, though it varies from site to site. Here’s my recommendation though: first, scroll to the bottom of the site and look for the RSS icon or a link referring to RSS. If that fails, look for a sitemap and read through it for any RSS links. If you still cannot find an RSS link search “site:[news-site-url] RSS” in your favorite search engine. If you get no results, try searching just the name of the news site plus “RSS”. If you still can’t find anything then you might be out of luck.

How to get a Ground News RSS Feed:
Using OpenRSS.org you can create a Ground News RSS feed instead of relying on their app or website.

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Consider Checking Out Mastodon

natebowie — Fri, 18 Nov 2022 07:09:30 GMT

Thought I would share a video on the federated social media platform Mastodon. If you've been following me it'll be obvious this video isn't by me, but is a great overview of the platform and embedding was enabled by Techlore.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/BkRkTdm9efs

Anyway, I've been using it for a while and think it's a cool platform. There's people who went to Mastodon because they're worried other social medias censor too much, there are people there because they thing social medias don't moderate heavily enough, and people their because they like the tech that runs Mastodon and/or don't like Big Tech.

If you're interested, I'd recommend checking it out. Send me a message or some hatemail or something

@natebowie@mastodon.social

The Best™ way to follow content (RSS Feeds)

natebowie — Thu, 27 Oct 2022 10:28:27 GMT

Video Version

Sorry, the video's audio didn't turn out too good, though it's not a total loss.
https://youtu.be/qjD0JiReno8

Text Version

I hopefully got your attention with that title, but yeah, if you are willing to put a little bit of legwork I will lay out why I personally like RSS feeds and prefer to use them over other ways to subscribe to content. And I really do mean anything. You want to follow a twitter account? RSS Feeds. YouTube videos, or videos on another video platform? RSS Feeds. Want to avoid filling up your inbox with newsletters for blogs or project updates? RSS feeds.

Feeds aren't really all that new, in fact they are almost as old as I am. The concept is pretty simple, you have a file accessed over the internet which lists off a bunch of different “items” which your feed reader can view and show to you. Whenever the feed is updated the feed reader sees that and shows it to you, and whenever you open the entry the reader marks it as read and likely hides it. These entries can be just about anything, from written content like news articles, to YouTube videos, to the top posts of a sub reddit.

Now, there’s a few reasons why I like this sort of setup, so I figured I would lay them out before I run down the basics on reading them (though they’re pretty simple), and what your options for readers are. The first reason worth talking about feeds is privacy. Unlike, say, a YouTube account with subscriptions, you don’t need to create any sort of account to subscribe to feeds, even, for example, if you subscribe to a bunch of YouTube channels through feeds. In the case of text content you can usually read it within the reader, and in the case of some content such as videos you can open it in an external web browser and view without signing in.

Secondly, feeds allow a lot more customization in how you view your content. Usually, if you are loading text based articles within your feed reader you just get the text without a million images, ads, and recommended posts. If you are opening the link in a browser, such as with YouTube, you can load it into something like NewPipe or a browser of your choosing with your own customization. This could be, say, a browser with ad block and sponsor block that clears cookies the second you close it (this is doable on Android with the Fennec fork of Firefox allowing desktop add-ons).

Third, there’s no algorithms or recommended content, just the content you specifically subscribed to. For some people that might be a drawback, but personally I find it a bit more productive to consume the content I want to while cutting out any distractions or rabbit holes that I could end up going down.

Last, you can easily mix and match content. Take videos for example, if you were to watch YouTube from within the app, from within NewPipe, or by loading the site and viewing your subscriptions from within a web browser then you are stuck on YouTube. Personally, for example, if anybody is hosting a PeerTube instance they keep up to date I would prefer to watch it on there since they went through the effort to get it running. Or, for example, when creators like Mental Outlaw post additional content on Odysee that they don’t post on YouTube. While I’ve used feeds on and off for years, this is what got me to switch my video watching all to feeds somewhat recently. While manually checking one or two channels on Odysee, a couple of PeerTube instances, plus a half dozen Substacks and blogs is something that would be a bit time consuming, feeds make it super easy. For example, you can easily have a folder for video subscriptions, and subscribe to a bunch of channels over a half a dozen different platforms, and still never even notice it since they get merged into the same list of content as if you were looking at a YouTube subscription list.

So, if you’re still interested, here’s where I’ll go over the basics of reading feeds and what different setups you can choose. The process is pretty simple, you just take the feed link and add the feed to your reader. It’s usually advertised with the RSS icon, but I’ll also probably write about getting feeds for a whole bunch of services that don’t advertise it (video platforms, social medias, ect). Next, though it varies according to what reader you are using, you can generally name the feed, add it to a particular folder or group, and chose how the reader will open the content that comes in. In the video version I add a few feeds to the Feeder app (my favorite feed reader for Android).

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