Tools for surfing the web

Here are a few tools I really think are essential as you go about the Web.

A place to start surfing

When you open your Browser, what’s the thing you reflexively type into the address bar, the background tab you reflexively click on? Skip it. Try something new. A social media feed or newspaper front page is like going to the mall. Instead, go to a gallery in a new town, or find a stranger who welcomes you into their garden.

There are many, many places to start looking, from individually authored linkblogs to hand-curated directories of personal websites. You’ll start there and end up somewhere else. Try to avoid the high streets and keep to the back alleys, that’s where the interesting stuff is. My advice is to find a directory and make that your browser’s homepage.

Many personal websites still contain a “links” or “blogroll” section which actually does link to interesting things. When I write one, I’ll link to it here. In lieu of that, go to Joe Jenett’s i.webthings directory and click the random button. Or pick up a copy of the Internet Phone Book.

A place to keep bookmarks

The social and news feeds are so ephemeral. You can’t keep hold of anything. When you find something good, and think “I will want to return here”, bookmark it. It’s like putting a book the bookshelf in your house. There are websites with accounts that let you store bookmarks, but most browsers let you save and organise bookmarks, and will even sync between your phone and computer.

An RSS reader

Listen, it’s not the 2000s any more, you can’t be checking your favourite websites manually to see if they’ve updated. Not only shouldn’t you, but you won’t, and that means to keep up with anyone online you’re trapped on a social network you hate. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

An RSS reader is to blogs as your podcast app is to podcasts. If you’re interested in anything on the Web beyond the five giant corporate sites, an RSS reader does the checking for you.

I self-host an instance of FreshRSS, which I access through an API on my phone and laptop using NetNewsWire. I could use a reader like NetNewsWire alone, but an aggregator like FreshRSS allows me to sync un/read statuses and subscribed feeds between devices. And I can also visit my FreshRSS instance on the Web to browse, like webmail versus your mail app.

If “self-host” means nothing to you, just start out at The Old Reader or Inoreader, but be aware they have limits on their free tiers. FreshRSS is always free and works great — over at my webhost Kualo it was a one-click install. Once installed you can even have multiple accounts. Set it up and make an account for your friend, your partner or your sibling, so they don’t have to!

For a client app I used Reeder for ages, but personally prefer the old-school-Mac-app feeling of NetNewsWire, and a plus that it’s also free.

Every morning over my coffee^[1] I can thumb through a self-curated magazine of new long-form writing from writers I love, interesting links and comics. I have the columnists I look forward to reading once or twice a week, the heavy-hitting pieces which arrive a few times a year, the soap-opera comic strips. I even subscribe to my local independent newspaper.

If you want to subscribe to my blog with RSS, you can grab the link right at the bottom of every page.

A read-later service

This is like a bookmarking service which also saves a copy of the bookmarked article, and records whether you’ve read it yet. So if you see something you like the look of but don’t have capacity to read, you save it here, and then can return to browse a list a list of things you know you want to read.

I use Instapaper because I can read the articles I’ve saved on my e-reader, and I can save to it from my phone on which I’ve disabled the browser. I use it to save long-form writing which I want to read as I would a book or magazine, when I’m in a long-form-reading mood. I previously used Pocket until Mozilla acqui-killed it for some reason.

There is probably also one built into your browser, like Safari or Vivaldi.

Kill the Newsletter!

RSS has been consigned to the library of lost knowledge, and as such people have started distributing their blog by email.

But not you. You have the secret knowledge of RSS. But what good is this knowledge if your favourite writer just won’t leave their favourite hangout?

Kill the Newsletter! has got your back. With a couple of clicks you create an email address which forwards to a fresh RSSAtom feed. Subscribe in your reader of choice, and every time the author sends another newsletter, your RSS feed gets updated.