A Browser Extension to Subscribe & Read Later

by Ben Ubois

There’s a new official browser extension to subscribe to feeds and save pages to read later.

You can use the extension in these browsers:

  • Safari - Bundled with the Feedbin app. It works on iOS, macOS, and iPadOS.
  • Chrome - Which is also where you should go if you’re using a Chromium based browser like Edge, Arc, Brave, etc…
  • Firefox

Besides being a convenient way to get content into Feedbin, the extension also enables a new feature for Pages. Previously Feedbin could only get the content of the page from its servers, so if the page you were on required an account, it couldn’t get the full content. Now the extension can upload the entire content of the page you are on, which helps it work better in more places.

Privacy-wise the extension tries to keep its permissions to a minimum. It has no background capabilities, so it will only run when it is clicked on. It’s also open source.

Feed Search

by Ben Ubois

Feedbin now has a feature that lets you easily find and subscribe to feeds by searching for keywords.

The search results include many popular feeds and enables searching by:

  • Feed name or partial name
  • Author
  • Feed description

The feature also comes with an update to the API so any client that uses Feedbin’s subscription API will automatically get search results too.

Custom Newsletter Addresses

by Ben Ubois

There’s a few new features for your newsletter address.

  1. Create unlimited addresses. First up, you can now create newsletter addresses. There’s a couple reasons you might want to do this:
    • Automatic categorization with a different default tag.
    • To prevent spam. More on this later.

    If you’re familiar with Apple’s Hide My Email or Fastmail’s Masked Email, then it’s like that, but for your newsletters.

  2. Customizable addresses. You can now choose a custom prefix for your address. This can help with making something more memorable or as a note to yourself what the address was created for.

  3. A new domain. All Feedbin newsletter addresses now use an @feedb.in domain. This was changed because it’s much shorter and nicer looking. Newsletters addressed to @newsletters.feedbin.com will continue to work too.

There is an unfortunate reality of email newsletters. Since running a fairly large inbound email service, it’s come to my attention that newsletter addresses accidentally leak (or get sold?) to spammers. To combat this, you can now deactivate an address entirely. I consider it good email hygiene to use a unique address for every newsletter you sign up for.

There’s a couple ways to do this:

  1. Generate a custom (or random address) on the website.
  2. Use a “plus hack”. Say you have the email address abc@feedb.in. You can also receive newsletters at abc+1@feedb.in or abc+anything@feedb.in. This way you don’t have to create a new address ahead of time. If this address ever gets out, you can disable it entirely.

Airshow Updates

by Ben Ubois

There’s an Airshow update available now. It includes a number of powerful new features, upgrades, and polish.

  • Interactive widget: Playback controls right on your Home Screen. The design is richer and now includes more useful information.
  • Download filters: Download just the episodes you want with keyword filters.
  • Skippable chapters: In the chapters view you can preselect chapters you want to skip.
  • Chapter filters: The only thing better than skippable chapters is being able to automatically skip chapters that match keywords you specify.
  • App icon: A beautiful and fun new concept designed by Matthew Skiles.
  • Polish: There’s a simplified scrubber in addition to multiple layout fixes and improvements especially on iOS 17.

Finally, Airshow now has its own website.

Fixable Feeds

by Ben Ubois

There’s a new set of features available on Feedbin with the goal of helping you find and fix broken feeds.

A fairly common reason for a feed breaking is when a publisher moves their feed, but does not redirect the old one to the new location.

Feedbin continuously monitors feed health and is now able to use this data to see if a healthy alternative exists.

For example a feed I subscribe to moved. Visiting the old one results in a “404 Not Found” error. Feedbin was able to detect that they still advertise feeds on their website and offers the option of replacing the broken one.

Visit your subscriptions page to get started. There will be a notice at the top of the page if Feedbin has detected any broken feeds it can help with.

This same feature can also help with OPML imports. For example if your OPML file includes an outdated link, Feedbin will automatically check for working alternatives.

Airshow 2.0

by Ben Ubois

Airshow 2.0, Feedbin’s podcast app for iPhone and iPad, is out now.

This release aims to address all the most common feature requests and some surprises. This includes:

  • Playlists: Airshow takes a streamlined approach to playlists. Most podcast players make playlist management in the same style as a music playlist. You subscribe to some shows, then you create a playlist separately.

    However podcasts are different. You typically only listen to an episode one time, so there’s no need to manage playlists separately. Instead, Airshow lets you choose or create a playlist when subscribing to the show, making it a one step process to add a new show to a playlist.

  • Speed Controls: People really like listening to podcasts faster than real-time.

  • Sleep Timers: Another common request, now available right on the player screen.

  • Download Manager: See and manage your downloads in one place. This is also helpful for surfacing download errors.

  • Mini Player: This makes it possible to see what’s playing and control playback from anywhere in the app.

  • More Chapter Art: Chapter specific artwork is now displayed on the lock screen during playback.

Twitter Access Revoked

by Ben Ubois

Feedbin’s Twitter access was revoked because “this App has violated Twitter Rules and policies.” Which is the same message many Twitter clients received in January when Twitter first started turning off API access.

Twitter does not want any kind of third-party client accessing its data. While it looked like there might be a path forward at one time, it’s now clear that there is not.

This means the end of Twitter support in Feedbin. Feedbin will no longer be able to fetch any new content from Twitter, but anything that you have already subscribed to will stay put.

I could tell you about the benefits of using open alternatives like RSS or Mastodon instead, but if you’re reading this, you already know.

Push Notifications for All Browsers

by Ben Ubois

Feedbin has long supported sending yourself a push notification from an Action. Previously this was available in Safari only. However as of Safari 16, most browsers support the standard Push API, so Feedbin now uses this for notifications. This makes the feature more widely available.

Push notifications can be intrusive, so why support them at all? I think Feedbin is in a unique position to get you exactly the notifications you want. A website that offers notifications will likely send you a notification for everything that is published, but with Feedbin you can narrow this down to a single source or search.

It also enables notifications for any website with an RSS feed, not just the sites that implement notifications.

Here’s how to set it up:

  • Create an Action.
  • Switch on the option to “Send a Push Notification.”
  • Click the link to “Enable push notifications” below the switch.

The Plan for Twitter

by Ben Ubois

A lot of customers have asked about the future of Twitter support in Feedbin. Even with today’s update there’s still not enough information to make a decision.

Feedbin’s priority is to keep the stuff that you subscribe to up-to-date, so the plan is to continue to use the API. However, it also depends on what the price ends up being:

  • If it’s cheap, Feedbin will just pay the fee and everything will continue as usual.
  • If it’s expensive, Twitter support could be available as a paid feature.
  • If it’s very expensive, say to the point where the paid upgrade price would cost more than a Feedbin subscription, Twitter support will likely be removed.

Finally, it’s unclear to me if Feedbin is even a valid product category according to the new rules. All this does not matter if they decide to revoke Feedbin’s access.

As I write this, Feedbin can’t connect to Twitter’s API. It returns a “Too many requests” error for every attempt. It looks more like a bug based on the other wide-spread Twitter issues from the last few days.

¯\(ツ)/¯

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