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D The Drew Archive One house, many rooms

Yarr

Why a self-hosted RSS reader still matters, and how Yarr fits into a more private, more intentional information system.

Originally published on 2022-07-10.

Drew’s Web-Based Feed Aggregator
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I created an instance of Yarr and wrote about it here as part of the archive’s record. RSS aggregators are the tool you should be using if you want to stay up to date with many different websites. Rather than visiting the web page directly you can follow a site’s RSS feed and be notified when a new article is published. RSS aggregators make news-aggregating applications and websites largely unnecessary, and they are better because they are not curated to push agendas or targeted news articles.

In the past I have used online RSS aggregators like feedly. Feedly is still a popular option but you are giving whoever runs feedly a curated list of the websites you are interested in. Also, they use a pay wall if you want to add folders to organize your feeds. I have also used RSS aggregators over email programs, for example Thunderbird has a decent built in tool. If you want the most efficient and private RSS aggregator then you are best off using newsboat.

What is Yarr?
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Yarr (yet another rss reader) is a web-based feed aggregator which can be used both as a desktop application and a personal self-hosted server. I am using it as a personal self-hosted server which is nice because I can access the websites I care about from any device so long as it has a connection to the internet.

Resources
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For further information on how I setup Yarr consult the following resources:

  • Yarr Github Repository: Yarr
  • Landchad.net’s guide: Yarr

Explore beyond this room

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