What is a .RSS file?
RSS is a web feed listing a site’s latest articles. Read by feed readers and podcast apps.
- Did you know
- RSS, which spread in the early 2000s, still powers podcasts and news feeds today.
- RSS began at Netscape in 1999 for its My.Netscape.com portal; Dave Winer’s UserLand later carried the format and shipped RSS 2.0.
- The initialism has stood for different things over time, from RDF Site Summary to the now-common Really Simple Syndication of RSS 2.0.
- What Analyser reads
- Inspect OS and system files: OPML subscription lists, RSS/Atom feeds, Linux .desktop launchers and systemd .service units, Apple .crash reports, Android .ab backups, Windows Task Scheduler .job, Group Policy Registry.pol, and .scr screensaver PE headers, plus identification of .DS_Store, Thumbs.db, dSYM/DWARF and shim .sdb. macOS leaves its own small files everywhere and these open too: the ._ AppleDouble files a Mac writes onto USB sticks and into zips (Finder label, tags, resource fork, and the quarantine and where-from attributes that record which app downloaded the file and from which address), text clippings, internet, file and server locations, Finder Smart Folder searches, Terminal profiles, iTerm2 colour presets as a palette, Audio Unit presets, and .strings / .stringsdict localisation tables. Any Apple property list opens by its content whatever it is named, with Cocoa NSKeyedArchiver archives rebuilt into a readable tree, and an Apple crash report saved as .ips is read as one. Scene .nfo ASCII art now opens in a CP437 viewer - see Text art above.
- Depth of analysis
- .RSS is an identification-grade format: Analyser recognises it from its bytes and decodes the header metadata it carries, rather than opening it in a full viewer. Formats that do get a full viewer are marked "Full" on the formats page.
- Open a .RSS file
- Drag a .RSS file onto the Analyser home page (or tap to pick one). It is identified entirely in your browser - nothing is uploaded, there is no account, and it works offline once installed.