Google Groups kills RSS support without notice Google has either turned off RSS support in Google Groups without telling anyone, or has failed to notice that RSS in Groups no longer functions. RSS, which stands for either RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication, is an open content syndication protocol. It allows people to subscribe to feeds from websites and receive …
Given I learned of this story via an RSS in my email client's news folder, it's obvious RSS isn't dead yet. Just because Google is trying to out-do Microsoft in the "offer then yank $Feature" catagory doesn't mean the rest of the web has also joined in the swirl down the bog hole.
It is, however, yet another reminder (as if any were needed by now) that relying on a free service, especially from Google*, is simply a way to fail at some point yet to be determined.
*Yes - I know gmail, chrome and maps aren't going away. Android either. I seriously wouldn't bet on anything else though.
Gmail, chrome, and maps haven't 'gone away', but Google has repeatedly changed and removed functionality on them to the point that maps and gmail are considerably less useful than they used to be.
Attachment support removed years ago from Gmail. Maps now for me insists on taking me via motorways when in the past it offered non motorway routes for part of the journey, that I preferred .
You sure that was Gmail? I just logged into the web interface and opened a new compose window. The attachment icon was like the third from the left.
Also, just FYI, there is an option in Google Maps to avoid highways (the American version of motorway). It's kind of buried so I don't blame you for missing it, but it is there unless there's some drastic difference between the US and UK versions of the app.
I'm rather grumpy about them leaving XMPP since I had my own XMPP server with a wonderful bridge that allowed it to talk to both GChat and Facebook's (before Facebook became toxic and unusable).
And I could stack OTR on top of it completely disallowing content-based advertising on my chats.
Loved it.
Gmail might not go away, but i *do* hope that neither does IMAP/POP3 support (however broken it might be at times), but I'm quite aware that this day will definitely come someday.
It's been years since I last logged in using a browser. The day I'm forced to, it will definitely be the last.
And I got this story using Tickr, which shows me continuous rolling headlines for The Register, BBC News, and Sailing, Rugby and Motor Racing news. I also use RSS to feed me daily summary emails from other sites which I don't bother to track in real-time.
I suppose I shouldn't mention this because now ElReg know that if they want to get rid of me all they need to do is yank the RSS feed!
It's not quite the same though is it? RSS for mailing lists, which is essentially what this, has almost always been redundant: you could simply subscribe to the mailing list and rely on your MUA to provide the filtering. For websites it's just a simple way of avoiding having to provide a push service.
My guess is that Google decided they could do without whatever is generating the XML and so have less to maintain, especially if they have any kind of clients.
XML is still expensive to parse so it wouldn't surprise me if something based on JSON gets proposed to replace it for these kind of things.
Because it works the other way around, RSS is very different from providing a mailing list.
1. The receiver decides the frequency. I update some feeds every couple of minutes to get a scrolling headline view. Others I check once a day or less.
2. The site doesn't have the hassle of dealing with mailing lists. Particularly the issue of your list being declared as spam by some receiving site or other every day, and even your sending mail server appearing on blocking lists.
The small effort of generating the necessary XML is tiny (and completely automated) compared with, particularly, the hassle of maintaining a mailing lists.
"Just because Google is trying to out-do Microsoft in the "offer then yank $Feature" catagory"
Google is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay ahead of Microsoft in that category. Not even in the same league. Never built products or process around Google technology. Even as a paying customer of Google.
|Google is trying to out-do Microsoft in the "offer then yank $Feature" catagory
Dude, Google is so far ahead of Microsoft in that category they're not even in the same league. Never fall in love with *any* offering from Google, it'll be shuttered just as soon as you're really comfortable with it.
I migrated off Google services, including e-mail, several years ago and then returned during the brief time I ran a Chromebook. Google is indeed the king of disappearing services in all sectors, but also among the easiest to migrate off. Google Takeout is pretty damn decent, and nearly unmatched by other prominent vendors (cough.. cough... Microsoft). Still, the plan (and my scripts) are still at hand should I need to move once again. The only thing that I'd truly be sad to lose is Google Fiber though, but even without that life would go on.
Despite using RSS for many years I will not miss Google Groups. I rarely use that directly but it remains the prime source of spam into mailing lists that I read using RSS via gmane.
I do however have a couple of RSS feeds from Google News searches. I wonder how long those will survive?
since Google killed earlier this year the possibility to embed a group in an IFRAME on other sites, for me RSS becoming unavailable is not a big surprise either.
https://support.google.com/a/answer/9687393#deprecated
Also, since some countries start to get crazy about applying taxes for every article quote or piece of news ... killing RSS feeds it's probably another logical measure taken to make publisher's lives more difficult?
Feeds from other sites into Google News / search snippets will most likely become the next victim scheduled to be eliminated.
let me rephrase that... it's probably another measure taken to satisfy beancounters. (yeah, definitely :p). Articles and/or content reuse can now be easier accounted manually, since it's no longer automated via RSS. :) (*grin*)
https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/14/google_fine_france/
Google together with other big corporations achieved regulatory capture.
10 years ago if someone was not happy, they could start their own service. Today it's pretty much financial suicide as it is impossible to keep up with all the regulations for an individual. Soon you'll get mandatory content filters, 1hr SLA on government requests to delete content and so on.
Google can slowly turn down money losing features without fear of someone creating a competition in their basement.
Well done.
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