Internet Explorer 7, Feeds and MSE thread Discussion

sra

This thread was split from the Internet Explorer 7, Feeds and MSE thread

everythingblogcast

I would recommed that people do NOT use the feeds on IE7 because they download every few seconds and not updated ones then download everything, so its going to cost Martin alot of bandwidth. So please just go via the normal way.

sra

everythingblogcast wrote:

I would recommed that people do NOT use the feeds on IE7 because they download every few seconds and not updated ones then download everything, so its going to cost Martin alot of bandwidth. So please just go via the normal way.

I'm sure that's not the case. You can set how often the feed is refreshed

When I added the ones in the screenshot, it defaulted to once every day! (Link)
Admittedly it might be better to highlight the 'Refresh' beside each feed title rather than the 'Feed Properties' link where people might change it to refresh too often, but that can be easily fixed.

In addition, when you consider how many people come to a board many times a day, it would be much better if they were monitoring a feed rather than downloading the whole page every time.

everythingblogcast

sra wrote:

I don't that's the case. You can set how often the feed is refreshed

When I added the ones in the screenshot, it defaulted to once every day! (Link)
Admittedly it might be better to highlight the 'Refresh' beside each feed title rather than the 'Feed Properties' link where people might change it to refresh too often, but that can be easily fixed.

In addition, when you consider how many people come to a board many times a day, it would be much better if they were monitoring a feed rather than downloading the whole page every time.

I have learned that via Security Now! that their feeds costed them over $40,000, because people were just adding the feed and just leaved the defualt settings.

sra

everythingblogcast wrote:

I have learned that via Security Now! that their feeds costed them over $40,000, because people were just adding the feed and just leaved the defualt settings.

I heard that episode too. Wasn't that long before IE7? Who knows what these other clients were set to.
I think MS would be mad to default IE to check too often. they'd crash the internet :rotfl:

I'd have to check, but I think that was actually the TWiT page that was referred to. If I recall, he'd put the feeds on his residential ISP account temporarily not realising how much bandwidth they consume - even though feeds are only very small xml files.
It was the wrong type of account for a feed.

In Leo Laporte's case (if it was him rather than Steve Gibson) as well as a huge number of feeds (because of his techie fanbase use this stuff) he also has a huge number of podcast clients pounding his server (Many probably set to check ever few minutes) looking for updates for his many podcasts.


I really think feeds could bring a lot of people to MSE. Like I said, I have 100+feeds and if I didn't use a Reader, many of those sites I would never go to - There are just too many.

everythingblogcast

But at least he got his money back.

spook

The whole point of RSS is to use be a lightweight protocol anyway. I'm sure it doesn't use too much bandwidth as it only downloads a small text file every time you hit the feed, rather than a full graphical HTML page.

sra

I much prefer Google Reader to other clients. The big advantage - if I'm understanding their system correctly - is that they only collect the feed once on behalf of all their susbscribers

That would be great for reducing a site's bandwidth - thought it also means a site doesn't know how many people are really subscribed.

The idea of the OP above it just to get all the newbies interested in RSS - then they might change to a better reader

everythingblogcast

That is good. I love google, want to work for them.