Two useful websites

For fixing the lack of an RSS feed, and protecting you from spam emails.

March 17, 2021


FetchRSS

So I like my RSS feeds, I've written in the past that RSS is simply the best way to follow things on the internet, using social media or signing up for an email list are things which are simply inferior to a simple RSS feed. Unfortunately not every site I like to follow has an RSS feed attached to it. Joel Salatin's site is one of those.*

So what do I do? Do I join a mailing list? No, that's not how I consoom content I'd never end up reading it. (Although if anyone knows of a way to convert emails to an RSS feed I'd like to look into it) Do I just try to make it a habit to visit these sites every day? No, I'd never remember to actually do that. Do I forget about reading stuff on these sites entirely? Well I could but I'd rather not Joel Salatin writes some good stuff.

So what I end up doing is finding some sort of service to convert a webpage into an RSS feed. Ideally I'd want one I could run on my server but I haven't been able to come across one of those, so I have to find some sort of third party site to do this instead. The site I chose was FetchRSS which admittedly is probably not the best option (in fact it is probably one of the worst, it doesn't even have HTTPS) but I have my reasons for using this one instead of others.

I could explain what exactly the process of how you use the site to generate an RSS feed but I've decided you're smart enough to follow on screen instructions, the important thing to note is the fact that it works, its of course not perfect, but it works.

Ten Minute Mail

The one annoying thing about FetchRSS is that, like many things on the internet, it requires you to make an account using your email address. There are times when this is something that is a good idea, but this is not one of those times. You don't want to be getting any spam from a site like this, and you definitely don't want this site to be another liability when it comes to your online privacy.

What many people do when they realize this problem is set up a new email account to subscribe to all of this junk with, and they will never use that address for anything actually important. Doing this does solve the first problem I mentioned but not the second, and there is an easier way to do this. Just google ten minute mail.

When you do this a number of sites will pop up that all do the same thing so there isn't one that isn't particularly better than any of the others (assuming you have a good ad blocker). These sites will give you a valid email address that is active for only ten minutes which can be used to create accounts to dumb websites privately and be able to receive confirmation emails to finalize your account if needed. These sites are among your most important tools to keep spam and privacy liabilities out of your life.

The reason that I chose FetchRSS over other similar (and probably better) services is because the developers of it didn't bother to block creating an account with an email address from one of these sites. Ten minute mail sites are not perfect because they don't work for every site, but they sure are a lifesaver when they do. By taking advantage of ten minute email addresses one can enjoy the benefits of unlimited free accounts to FetchRSS and many other useful websites. You should definitely be using ten minute mail whenever you can.


* Since originally publishing this I have been informed that Joel Salatin does have an RSS feed which can be found at https://feeds.feedburner.com/Blog-TheLunaticFarmer I do wish people could make these easier to find.