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Does Google get pleasure from teasing and typically outright torturing a few of its merchandise’ most devoted followers? It might appear that method.
Tucked away inside a latest bleeding-edge Chrome construct is a “Following feed” that has some bloggers dreaming of the return of Google Reader. It is unlikely, however by no means say by no means with regards to Google product selections.
Chrome added a sidebar for looking bookmarks and Studying Record articles again in March. Over the weekend, the Chrome Story weblog noticed a new flag in Gerrit, the unstable testing construct of Chrome’s open supply counterpart Chromium. Enabling that #following-feed-sidepanel flag (now additionally out there in Chrome’s testing construct, Canary) provides one other choice to the sidebar: Feed.
Feeds? Like RSS feeds, the sort we as soon as had in dear, departed Google Reader, slain for the sins of Google+?
Kevin Tofel of About Chromebooks thinks so. Tofel writes that the underlying code of the function “strongly suggests” an RSS-based feed reader, primarily based on the particular language of “net feeds.” Then once more, that very same code part, powering the interplay between browser and sidebar, notes that it is going to be “the interface that Uncover Feed content material… will use to speak with the browser.”
There’s some ambiguity there—but in addition proof that Google is sticking with its long-gestating efforts to harness the open RSS normal within the Google ecosystem of “Observe.”
The “Observe” button was launched in a Chrome for Android experiment in Might 2021. Following a web site allowed you to see its newest updates in a tab in your Chrome “new tab” web page, much like the “Uncover” residence web page function on many Android telephones. The function trickled into the Chromium Gerrit desktop builds earlier this year, and a “Observe” button is now out there in Chrome Canary.
Final week, Chrome updated its guidance for web site homeowners trying to have readers “Observe” their websites, asking them to make feed titles descriptive and to pick a single feed for readers as an alternative of providing a number of sections.
Chrome-watching blogs like to boost the specter of Google Reader in headlines when discussing Google’s makes an attempt to show apps and gadgets into content material hubs. But it surely’s extremely unlikely that Google would make investments a lot into placing Uncover-like feeds into its telephones, web-based laptops, browsers, search engine, Nest hubs, and extra, merely to give up and say, “Really, we’ll simply present you your headlines once more.” Uncover feeds are additionally an area that Google controls, so it might probably infuse them with promoting, which it might probably’t do with RSS.
Fortunately, there’s a longtime marketplace for old-school and reimagined RSS readers—and a few very good options. Talking of which, Ars Technica affords multiple segmented RSS feeds for readers. You may also add /feed/ to the tip of any creator web page URL for author-specific feeds, like so.
