Today's Deep-Dive: Tiny Tiny RSS

Welcome to the deep dive. You know, in today's world, keeping up with news and info

online,

it can feel like trying to drink from a fire hose, right? Oh, absolutely. It's just

this constant

flood. Overwhelming is definitely the word. Yeah, exactly. How do you actually stay

informed on the

things you care about without just drowning in it all? It's a real puzzle. And that

feeling of

just being bombarded. I think most people feel that way. Totally. Which brings us

to why we're

doing this deep dive. We're looking at a tool designed to, well, put you back in

the driver's

seat. Today, it's tiny, tiny RSS or key TRS. Right. Think of it as maybe your

personal command

center for news. Exactly. A highly organized one. And our info today, it comes

straight from the

source, the project's GitHub repository and their official website. Yeah. Those are

really the best

places to get the facts on what it is and what it can actually do for you. Okay.

But before we dive

right in, just a quick word about the supporter of this deep dive, safe server.

Safe server provides

hosting for exactly this kind of software and they support your digital

transformation. You can find

out more at www to safe server dot de. Good to know. So our mission today is pretty

straightforward.

We want to break down what tiny, tiny RSS is, why it could be really useful for

staying informed,

especially if you're someone who likes to learn efficiently. And we want to make it,

you know,

so easy to grasp, even if you've never touched anything like this before. Perfect.

So let's kick

things off. Fundamentally, what is tiny, tiny RSS? Okay. So in simple terms, it's

basically a website.

Well, a web application that you run yourself. It lets you read and organize news

from all your

favorite websites. So it brings the news to you. Exactly. All in one place. It uses

these things

called RSS feeds and Adam feeds to automatically collect the latest updates. Okay.

RSS and Adam

feeds. Let's pause there. For someone totally new, what are those like, uh, website

subscriptions?

That is a great way to put it. Imagine your favorite sites have this, um, special

background

update channel. When they post something new, they also send out a little notice on

this channel,

this feed. Ah, okay. And a feed reader like tiny, tiny RSS subscribes to those

channels for you.

It's just sits there and gathers all the new articles or posts as they come out,

like getting a personalized newspaper delivered made up only of the sources you

picked.

That makes total sense. So I'm building my own custom news stream basically.

Now you said it's self hosted. What does that actually mean for the average person?

Not a tech

expert. Right. Self hosted means you install and run the software usually on a web

server. You

control instead of using a service run by some big company, like having your own

bookshelf,

instead of using the public library. Exactly like that. The big advantage is

control

your data, your reading habits. They stay with you. It boosts your privacy because

well, there's no

third party tracking what you read for their own purposes. I see. So if owning your

data matters,

this is a big plus. A huge plus for many people. Yes. And I also saw it's free and

open source

software. What's the significance of that? Why should I care? Well, free means

obviously

it doesn't cost money to use the software itself. Open source means the actual

computer code it's

built with is available for anyone to look at, use, even change if they want to.

And that usually

leads to a strong community. People use it, find bugs, suggest improvements, even

help develop it.

It's more transparent and often more trustworthy because of that openness, kind of

a collective

effort. Got it. Free tool, community support. I host it myself. Total control over

my news.

Okay. Let's connect this back to that feeling of being overwhelmed. How does TTRs

actually help

manage the information flood? What are the killer features for say our learner

persona?

One of the biggest things right off the bat is organization. You can create folders

and folders

within folders, subfolders. So you follow tech, maybe some finance blogs, cooking

sites. You can

put each category in its own neat little box. No more giant messy list of

everything all at once.

That already sounds way more manageable. What else helps keep things, you know,

sane?

Well, we mentioned aggregation, pulling everything together, but there's also

something called OPML

import and export. OPML? What's that? It's like a standard format for lists of feed

subscriptions.

So if you're already using another news reader or you find a curated list somewhere,

you can usually export it as an OPML file. Then boom, you import that into tiny,

tiny RSS

and all your subscriptions are there. No need to add hundreds of sites one by one.

Okay, that's a huge time saver, especially if you're switching over. What about

sharing?

If I find a gem, can I easily send it to someone?

Yeah, definitely. There are multiple ways. You can get a unique URL for an article

to share.

There are plugins, add-ons that can connect to social media if you want to post

something there.

You can even export certain feeds you've curated yourself. Lots of options.

Nice. And you mentioned plugins and themes too. Sounds like customization.

Exactly. Plugins add extra functionality, maybe things like specific sharing

options or integrations.

Themes change how it looks, the colors, the layout. So you can really make it feel

like your space.

Okay. Another feature that caught my eye was embedding full article content. How

does that

help streamline things? This is really useful. It often uses something called readability,

or specific instructions for certain websites. Instead of just showing you a

headline and maybe

the first paragraph, forcing you to click. Click out to the original site.

Right. It tries to grab the entire article and display it right there inside tiny,

tiny RSS,

cleanly formatted. It means much less clicking around, less distraction.

You can just read through your stuff much faster.

That sounds brilliant. Cuts down on tab clutter too, I bet.

What about seeing the same story from five different sources? That gets old fast.

It does. And TTRS has a really clever feature for that called deduplication.

Deduplication. Okay.

It actively tries to identify articles that are basically the same, even if the

wording is

slightly different. Sometimes you can compare images and it hides the duplicates.

So you only

see that news item once. Really respects your time.

Very smart. I also saw keyboard shortcuts listed. That's always a plus for

efficiency fans.

Oh yeah. If you like to keep your hands on the keyboard, you can navigate,

mark things as read, star items, all much faster using shortcuts.

Big productivity boost for some people. And it even handles podcasts.

It can, yes. You can add podcast feeds, just like news feeds, and manage them

within the same

interface. Listen to episodes, keep track. It brings your text and audio

information together.

Wow. Okay. That's actually quite a comprehensive feature set.

Now let's touch on the technical side, but keep it simple. It mentions PHP and AJAX.

What does a beginner need to understand about those?

You really don't need to understand them deeply to use it. But think of PHP as the

language the

software is written in. It runs on the web server. AJAX is a technique websites use

to feel more

interactive. How so?

Like when new articles appear in your list without the whole page needing to

refresh and flicker,

that smoothness that's often AJAX at work. It just makes the user experience feel a

bit slicker.

Okay, standard web stuff behind the scenes. What are the requirements?

Web server, database? That sounds like it could be a barrier.

It can sound intimidating, I get that.

Yeah.

Basically, you need a place online to run it. That's the web server. It needs PHP

installed on that

server, and it needs a database like a digital filing cabinet to store all your

feeds, articles,

and settings.

So how does a beginner actually get that set up?

Well, many web hosting providers offer plans that already include PHP and a

database,

commonly MySQL or PostgreSQL, which T-Tarsase uses. You'd look for a host that

supports those.

Often, they have control panels that might even help you install common software.

So check the hosting provider's features list, basically.

Exactly. And there's another option too, Docker. I saw that mentioned.

Right, Docker. What's the deal there? Is that easier?

It can be for certain people.

Docker is like putting the entire application and everything it needs into a self-contained

box,

a container. If you have a server that can run Docker, deploying T-Tars this way

can

sometimes simplify the setup because it bundles everything together neatly.

It's maybe a step up technically from shared hosting, but it's very popular now.

Okay, good to know there are different paths. So if someone's listened to all this

and thinks,

hmm, maybe I should try this, where do they start?

Best place is the official website, ttrs.org, tt-rss.org.

Okay.

You'll find everything there, detailed guides on installation for different setups,

frequently asked questions, the lot.

Is there a way to just kick the tires, see what it looks like without installing

anything?

Yes, absolutely. They offer a public demo instance. You can log in right on their

website.

The login is usually demo for the username and demo for the password.

Oh, cool.

You can click around, add feeds, see how the interface feels.

Just be aware it resets regularly, like every few hours,

so anything you do there won't be saved long term.

But it's perfect for a no-commitment trial run.

That's fantastic. A try before you install option.

What if you do install it and get stuck or have questions?

The community forums are your friend there, linked from the main website.

Lots of helpful users, and the developer hangs out there too.

You can ask for help, report bugs, share tips. It's a really supportive community.

Great. And it seems like the project is alive and kicking, actively developed.

Oh yes, very much so. You can see the development activity on GitLab is constantly

being improved.

And because it's open source, there are ways for people to contribute back too,

like helping translate it into other languages or, if you're a coder, submitting

improvements.

Right, that whole community aspect again.

Okay, let's start to wrap this up.

For that person feeling totally swamped by online information,

what's the single biggest takeaway?

Why consider tiny, tiny RSS?

I think it really boils down to one word, control.

You get to decide what you see, when you see it, and how it's presented.

It's about shifting from being passively fed information by algorithms

to actively curating your own intelligent news flow.

Taking back control, making it efficient, making it private.

Exactly. It turns information consumption from a chore, potentially,

into a more focused, less noisy, and hopefully more insightful activity.

It might have a bit of a technical hurdle to get started,

compared to just using, say, a social media feed.

True. There's a set-up step involved, if you self-host.

But the payoff sounds like a significantly calmer,

more personalized reading experience.

That's the goal, absolutely. And with that demo,

you can judge the interface part for yourself very easily.

So, here's a thought to leave you with.

Imagine having all the news, blogs, updates, everything you genuinely care about,

all gathered in one place. Filtered, organized just for you,

completely free from the noise and bias of platform algorithms.

What kind of connections might you make?

What deeper insights could you uncover

when you're truly directing your own information stream?

Something to think about.

Definitely. You can find out more about Tiny Tiny RSS

and try that demo over at tt-rss.org.

tt-rss.org.

And finally, a huge thanks again to Safe Server

for supporting this deep dive into better information management.

You can learn more about their hosting solutions

at www.safeserver.de.

at www.safeserver.de.