CanEquity Web Feeds (RSS/Atom)

What is RSS?

RSS is a format used to syndicate news or news-related content on a website for use on another website or program. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, and is the most widely used format of syndication on the internet. (See below: Atom Feeds) RSS, and Atom Feeds, are updated with the latest news headlines, links to the full story and often a brief summary of the news items or articles from a website whenever a website is updated with new news items.

A Brief History of RSS

Originally, RSS stood for Rich Site Summary. RSS 0.90 was initially developed in 1999 by Netscape. It was based on a format called scriptingNews designed at UserLand in 1997. Over the next months, UserLand and Netscape released updated versions of RSS and scriptingNews. The RSS team at Netscape was evaporated in 2000, leaving UserLand to continue development of RSS. The current version of RSS (2.0) was developed by Harvard under a Creative Commons License.

What is Atom?

Atom, much like RSS, is a format for syndication of news and news-related content. It was initially developed because of recognized issues with RSS. Atom is an excellent alternative to RSS, but is hard to say if one is better then the other. There has been a heated debate over this topic, and because of this, CanEquity has chosen to offer both formats of syndication.

A Brief History of Atom

Prior to the creation of Atom, the main method for syndication of web content was the RSS family of formats. There were many people that felt there were some deficiencies with the RSS formats. Since RSS2.0, copyrighted by Harvard University, was announced "frozen", no significant changes are able to be made to the format. In June 2003, Atom, a new web feed syndication format, was created with the input of 1000's of people. Since it's conception, Atom has gained widespread adoption and is now used by several Google based services, such as Google News, GMail, and the recently acquired Blogger service.

Why you should use RSS and Atom Web Feeds

RSS and Atom web feeds (also known as news channels) provide an excellent and convenient way to keep up to date with information that you enjoy reading about. There are an infinite number of web feeds available on the internet today, including the ones found on CanEquity. With the proper RSS/Atom program, you can organize all of your favorite web feeds and access them with ease. See our list of programs below that will allow

How to Find and Add Web Feeds from a Website

When you are browsing a website that has continuously updated content, such as a news site, or a site that contains new articles, it isn't uncommon that the site will also contain a web feed, also known as an RSS or Atom feed. This is usually represented by an image or text link that says "Subscribe to Feed", "RSS Feed", or something similar. In the case of CanEquity, we use a simple image that allows you to subscribe to our RSS and Atom feeds with the click of your mouse (assuming you have the proper web feed reader / syndication software installed). Throughout our site, you will find icons that link to feeds related to the information that you are currently viewing. These icons are shown below:

These images link to the actual RSS or Atom feed. Some programs will recognize that this file is a syndication feed, and will automatically add it to your Web Feed Reader, others will require you to copy the address of the RSS or Atom feed and manually create a new feed/channel.

Available CanEquity Web Feeds

Canadian Mortgage News

Or subscribe using a web-based reader...

Web Feed Readers

There are a plethora of RSS and Atom readers out there, many of them are free to use. We have selected some of our favorites to help you get started in your quest to keep on top of all the news on the internet. Please note, that when you click a link below, you will directed to the software companies' homepage for more information and to download the latest version.

• Active Web Reader
  Active Web Reader is a free RSS feed reader. Browse feeds, Web, and search RSS headlines. Advanced auto discovery identifies new feeds as you browse. Small and extremely fast. Active Web Reader's has an excellent interface which makes it easy to view and read your RSS feeds. Control all RSS feed properties including the update frequency. It notifies you when updates a occur. A unique instant e-mail feature allows you to send any interesting article you find while browsing to friends with a single click of the mouse. You can also monitor web sites changes. It will highlight the exact content that was changed on the web page. Now you can easily import your favorite web sites and automatically monitor them for changes.
  
• RSSReader
  This free program is for reading RSS newsfeeds. It collects news in the background at user-configurable intervals and warns you with a small pop-up in the system tray when a new message has arrived. You can click the headline to see a short description and then open the original Web page in an RssReader browser or default browser window. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a format for indicating news. RssReader supports RSS versions 0.9x, 1.0, and 2.0, Atom version 0.1, 0.2, 0.3/1.0.
  

For more information on the RSS Syndication Format, Harvard Law has released an informative website regarding the RSS 2.0 Syndication. If you are interested in the Atom Syndication Format, AtomEnabled is a website that can give you more information.