It was done locally at first. They need accounts to push for subscriptions and to steal your reading habits.
this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2025
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They do not need an account ever.
There are a few companies that run reader apps that do require an account.
RSS was very common until Google created Google Reader, everyone centralized on it for some reason, then they killed it. Then Google and Apple and Firefox removed rss feeds from their browsers.
There are independent apps not is hard to find good ones
I used to use RSS to get a Craigslist search feed so new listings I searched for would just pop up next to my email in Thunderbird. it was nice
NetNewsWire is a phone app that handles RSS locally - it just has to do a bunch of updating every time you open the app
You could also run FreshRSS locally and use a client
+1 for FreshRSS
+2
Many RSS feed readers let you create an account to sync your read items and such (useful if you have multiple devices, also useful for bad actors to see everything you've read...) but there are plenty of readers where it's not a thing/is optional. On Android, there's "Feeder" and "CapyReader" (I use the latter) and on iOS there's NetNewsWire
RSS feeds are incredibly useful, I use them to keep up with all sorts of news. Most feed readers also let you group different feeds into categories. I have mine divided between science, technology, world news, etc.
NetNewsWire doesn't have its own accounts, but it can still sync your read items through iCloud.
Oop, yeo, they do. But it's optional I think since I never used it
RSS/Atom feeds are exactly what you describe. And there are plenty of local-only RSS readers. I use newsboat personally. There are also GUI programs, and mobile apps, if that's your preference.
There are many local ones but if you want to sync your subscriptions, categorizations and read markings, you need some server.
I use News Explorer which is Mac/iOS, runs locally, and uses iCloud to sync status++ between devices.
You do not need an account at all, the apps the do are shit. RSS feeds are just publicly available text files that get updated whenever the content of the website changes. An RSS reader is basically just a very fancy text file viewer that automatically downloads all those text files and presents them in a sorted feed.
There are lots of open source and accountless RSS readers. Personally i use "RSS Guard" on Linux but there are many others. Ive used "Feeder" on android before but there are many others there too.
It can absolutely be local.
For podcasts I use AntennaPod, for news I use Feeder. Whatever your use case, there is probably a local, well-made FOSS option.
Nonlocal uses have additional capabilities, such as syncing across multiple devices. I also use gpodder.net for podcast syncing, although there are self-hosted options for this as well.
Accounts are needed to sync accross devices. In those cases you‘re not having rss on your device but a server is doing it for you and you simply log in to the server.
If you‘re cool with selfhosting, look into freshrss
Lot's of mention of syncing settings, but the other reason for a server is scraping sites that do not provide their own RSS in order to create feeds. That requires regularly checking pages and translating new content into a standard RSS format.
The same reason Newpipe can keep your YouTube watch history locally but for goggle to do it they NEED you to login.
Accounts are not required.
I use mpage https://github.com/mpod/mPage?tab=readme-ov-file
dense and simple
Many sites provide a "feed" page, which is a regularly changing XML file* that a program of your choice can read and thus update a list of articles/podcasts etc.
That's literally all. No accounts or other BS.
That some apps try to make it into a business was to be expected I guess. I have no idea what the (perceived) advantages are, but there's no need to outsource any of the above into "the cloud". Plenty of purely local feedreader or podcast apps exist.
The rent seekers push web services because they don't think they can sell you a client app.
There are many nice completely free privacy respecting client apps for RSS on F-Droid.
If you like RSS and have nextcloud setup, the news app has had a lot of love.
In short any RSS app that needs the cloud and an account, is an RSS aggregater. In that you sign up to the cloud site and can see the feeds on any devices that have an app.