Technology

In my quest to prepare myself for reddit's usefulness significantly declining come June 30 / July 1st, I've essentially been having to brainstorm solutions to what I've been using it for.

While I'm attempting Lemmy for the discussion forum side of things, (It's not the only thing I'm trying, but it's the most promising so far), it has been a challenge to replace the link-aggregator aspect of reddit due to the distributed nature of Lemmy. I can no longer just rely on others to find information for me to stay informed. (Not that that was especially a great idea, looking at that statement now, I will admit I just got complacent and lazy)

I randomly remembered RSS feeds were a thing, and decided to look back into it. While definitely not as prevalent as it once was, many places still support it. (Including both Lemmy and reddit; though with reddit who knows for how long)

RSS is probably my best bet, but admittedly, I will have to remember how to use/search the internet again (I really let myself get way too lazy) to find sites that I'm interested in and that support RSS. There's also the issue of finding an appropriate RSS reader, which has proven slightly more complicated than what I was hoping for.

My first RSS reader attempt was the Feedly reader for android. However, I couldn't create an organized feed list to my satisfaction without paying a subscription fee. That may be fine for most people, I personally didn't want another subscription service. Especially when there may be open-source alternatives that I could try to figure out myself (Even if it's a hassle to learn).

After that, I tried to make my RSS reader criteria much more narrow (I believe I included open source as part of my search terms). While I didn't make a list of everything I found (sorry), I did find one that is next on my list of things to try: Tiny Tiny RSS

I have done some preliminary research and testing on this, so I will post some pros, cons and unknowns to this application.

Tiny Tiny RSS Pros, Cons, Information, and Unknowns

• Pros
  • Free / Open Source
  • Has many application clients that can connect to Tiny Tiny RSS instances that are free (I have not tested these yet)
    • Windows Store: Tiny Tiny RSS Reader 2
    • Android: TTRSS-Reader
    • iPhone: tiny Reader RSS
• Cons
  • Unless you know of a public site/instance, a person who wants to use this would have to administrate it themselves.
  • Looking over the installation guide, "general" users would likely find the install process to be very involved
  • Platform Specific
    • Windows
      • Tiny Tiny RSS uses docker, which, according to the documentation will still end up using a form of linux
        • This is not an issue for me, but could be for other less-savy users, especially if something goes wrong.
  • While not explicitly required, having networking knowledge can make it easer for others to use it.
  • If self hosting on your home network
    • Unless you're willing to allow outside connections to your network in some way, would only be available for that network
  • If hosting elsewhere
    • Very unlikely to be free, which would defeat the purpose of using this, IMO
      • Yes, techincally hardware isn't free, but the costs are at least up front (if you exclude the somewhat minor increase in the electricity bill) if you buy it yourself, and not another subscription to deal with
• Extra information
  • Windows
    • To install on windows, it will require docker, which requires either
      • Windows Subsystem for Linux 2
        • Every currently surported edition of windows supports this, provided it is up to date
      • Hyper-V
        • Cannot be used with Home Edition
  • Linux
    • Uses docker, but no odd subsystems or Virtual Machines
    • Ideas
      • Tiny Tiny RSS can be installed on a Raspberry Pi
        • Don't forget to consider storage requirements, Tiny Tiny RSS is downloading from RSS feeds
        • Probably one of the cheapest setup options, unless you already have another linux machine available
  • Outside access thoughts
    • Could theoretically set up a VPN to your home network to access your RSS Feed safely
    • If you understand the security implications, you could also make it publicly accessible through port forwarding
      • The advantage to this is that you could have friends use your RSS feed as well
      • If you decide to do this, make sure you really do your homework for computer and network security
• Unknowns
  • What public Tiny Tiny RSS sites may already exist
  • I have not tested each Tiny Tiny RSS client application that I have listed above

Looking at the list above, there's certainly a lot of downsides for most people, but I don't think it should deter the determined.

Although, the more I think about things like this, the more I consider just setting up my own homelab. But I think Tiny Tiny RSS can at least fulfill my needs for the short term.