RSS feed for updated software?

[moerl]

I'm really puzzled by the fact that I've never thought about this before.. I'm someone who reads 40 newsfeeds regularly in Feeddemon on Windows, in the Newsgator beta web-reader at work and with the Newsgator iReader on my iPhone. I freaking love RSS . And yet to be notified of new software releases, I still subscribe to lame, 1990-esque email notifications from sites like Softpedia and Betanews. Does anyone know of a site that will let you select software titles you use and then generate an RSS feed where the posts are updates to the titles you use?

[Lashiec]

CNET's Download.com has something like this, and probably so does VersionTracker.

[twinkler]

http://www.filehippo.com/

[Curt]

- and Major Geeks and SnapFiles

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or even "our very own" Appget:
http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=8748.0

[moerl]

Sweet suggestions, folks! Thank you. I'll probably go with the RSS option, as that's far more portable than something like Appget, but eventually I may check that out too.

[Curt]

Sorry, I should have said this in my first post: the RSS links from the Major and Snap are not limited to your choice of programs. The version on the picture is from the very old RSS Popper - RSS news to be delivered right into the mail inbox.

[moerl]

Sorry, I should have said this in my first post: the RSS links from the Major and Snap are not limited to your choice of programs. The version on the picture is from the very old RSS Popper - RSS news to be delivered right into the mail inbox.

By "not limited to your choice of programs", do you mean you can specify which programs you'd like to be notified about when updates hit?

[Curt]

Hmmm..., only now I can see how un-clear my words were. No, you cannot choose at all. ALL updates and new programs are mailed.

[moerl]

Hahah.. you essentially said the opposite of what you were trying to say . It's all good though.. well there goes that. The ability to *select* what updates I receive is crucial. That's a deal-breaker for the mentioned feeds. Too bad!

[twinkler]

filehippo makes this easy. at the bottom of each page for a program there are two rss buttons, one of which is for updates on that specific program. for example, at the bottom of http://www.filehippo.com/download_rocketdock/ is a button linking to http://www.filehippo.com/download_rocketdock/rss/.

[moerl]

filehippo makes this easy. at the bottom of each page for a program there are two rss buttons, one of which is for updates on that specific program. for example, at the bottom of http://www.filehippo.com/download_rocketdock/ is a button linking to http://www.filehippo.com/download_rocketdock/rss/.

Ok, yeah, but I'm not looking to add 100 feeds to FeedDemon today. I need ONE feed that will tell me about all the software udpates I'm interested in. In *one* feed, because that's the only way it makes any sense.

[Curt]

Yes, that is the only way it makes sense - and if you know how to code this, it will make you money if you want to, because such an app is not to be found yet. I guess we would know.

[moerl]

It wouldn't be an app.. really. Well, I suppose you could make a web-app of it. If you think about it, this technically already sort of exists. There's gotta be SOME service out there that lets you add a bunch of feeds and will then all be combined into a single super-feed. I think I've read about it too. Ah well. It would be too tedious..

Here's an idea: a web-app that can pull data from Softpedia, Betanews, Tucows, Majorgeeks etc.. and that consists of an app database. Users register and log in and can search and browse apps with pretty icons, then add them to their "tracked" list. This list generates an RSS feed you can subscribe to. Of course you could build a mini social network around this, though I'm not sure if that would be worth the effort.. pretty good idea overall, I think

[cmpm]

This may be close to what you are looking for.
Haven't tried it but it seems to say you can build your own feed from many feeds and websites.

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/feededitor.html

[muntealb]

All you need is an RSS Reader that has filtering capabilities. Then you subscribe to the RSS feed with new versions of software from your preferred site (Softpedia, Snapfiles, etc.) and make X filters, one for each software you're interested in. The filter can be customized so that it applies only to the feed(s) that you select. For example if you use GreatNews for RSS you must create "News Watches" (name for filters in GreatNews) for EditPad, KMPlayer, Maxthon, etc. Each time the feed is updated the "News Watch" will search for the name of the software in the new items of the feed. Of course each time this name appears in the feed from Softpedia or Snapfiles there is a new version available.

Actually in GreatNews you can create a filter with multiple words to watch so you don't even need X filters but a single one.

[Curt]

moerl's prime wish was to know when his programs are updated. Many sites do not yet use RSS, so ...

[muntealb]

The best software sites use RSS :

http://www.snapfiles.com/feeds/snapfiles.xml
http://www.softpedia.com/backend.xml
http://www.versiontracker.com/windows/recent.rss
http://www.majorgeeks.com/backend.php
http://www.sofotex.com/download/xml/freeware.xml
http://fileforum.betanews.com/rss2

Using a filter that searches for the names of the desired programs in these feeds is exactly what is needed to be aware when new versions become available.

GreatNews ( http://www.curiostudio.com/ ) is free and perfect for that.

[twinkler]

sorry, moerl, i missed that you wanted a single rss feed for all programs. web service rss mix can supposedly do this--see http://www.rssmix.com/.

[Curt]

Nice find, twinkler!   

- guess "we" didn't know!! 

http://www.rssmix.com/

[moerl]

I thought of that, actually. Adding one master update feed and then creating a "watch" for just the items I'm interested in. The only thing that is not too elegant about this is that I will still have the main feed updating and distracting me. FeedDemon can do the filter/watch thing, of course, and you can also add multiple words to one filter so all it would take is a single filter. I might actually do that. It's a great idea, simple, and what's great is that it lets me edit very quickly what I want to watch for and what I don't, much unlike when you have to handle what titles you want to bed notified about through a particular software portal itself. Softpedia has always been buggy as crap with their software list.. they probably still have not fixed it. I'll have to log in at Softpedia and Betanews to kill all my "software subscriptions", then apply this feed idea. What it lacks in elegance it makes up for in simplicity, speed and flexibility.

Thanks for the suggestion..

And upon some consideration, I have concluded that the feed + custom watch solution is far easier to handle than using RSSMix, for example, though I do much appreciate you mentioning it, twinkler. In another instance, it may well come in very handy.

In fact, using RSSMix you could create the de facto "elegant" solution to this problem. You'd subscribe to exactly one feed and that feed would only show exactly the items you want to know about. Damn it.. saying it like this is causing me to reconsider whether the solution I picked is the best one after all...

I'll think about it

[moerl]

I just thought of another argument in favor of rht RSSMix.com method.. since I read feeds while on the go as well as while on "public" computers through Newsgator's web reader, I won't have access to the filters if I set them up at the desktop at home inside FeedDemon. With the RSSMix method, I will have the updated software feed anywhere I go.

RSSMix method wins.

[justice]

I just started trialling FeedRinse. All membership plans are now free. You can set up a list of feeds, I've used the 6 from muntealb and added filehippo:

http://www.snapfiles.com/feeds/snapfiles.xml
http://www.softpedia.com/backend.xml
http://www.versiontracker.com/windows/recent.rss
http://www.majorgeeks.com/backend.php
http://www.sofotex.com/download/xml/freeware.xml
http://fileforum.betanews.com/rss2
http://www.filehippo.com/rss

Then you can set up a new channel called software updates with the rules: Allow posts containing winamp. Hopefully this blocks all other posts.
Then subscribe to that rss feed. I'm not sure if it blocks all the others though, and it's tough to test as software releases don't happen every five minutes. The site is easy to use but very simple. I'll update with my experiences.

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[Curt]

In October CyberNotes had a really fine tutorial on how to use RSS for program's updates: http://cybernetnews.com/2007/10/11/cybernotes-create-a-custom-software-update-notifier/

[justice]

I have just failed to create an autohotkey script that will generate an RSS feed with only updates to your installed programs.

However the script works, it's just that the URL generated won't work with the service i'm using. However maybe one of you knows an alternative server or can make this script work, then it's worth a look.

Basically the script loops through HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall and adds all installed programs to a query that uses ReFilter to filter out only matching entries from a general software update rss feed I created by combining 8 software update feeds (6 mentioned here and two more from the Cybernetnews link).

The thing would work but ReFilter doesn't allow such lengthy urls. Anyone wants to pick this up?

Script source

SetBatchLines -1  ; Makes searching occur at maximum speed.
Filter =
Gosub, RegSearch
StringReplace, Filter, Filter,%A_Space%,`%20, All
MsgBox, Your browser will now be pointed to the URL to subscribe to
URL=http://re.rephrase.net/filter/?feed=http`%3A`%2F`%2Ffeedrinse.com`%2Fservices`%2Fchannel`%2F`%3Fchanurl`%3D361b26ed7fa2a88f710219cb73b57379&filter=%Filter%
Run, %url%
return

RegSearch:
Loop, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE,SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall , 1, 1
{
    Gosub, CheckThisRegItem
}
return

CheckThisRegItem:
if A_LoopRegType <> REG_SZ  ; Remove these two lines if you want to check key names too.
  return
IfInString, A_LoopRegSubKey, {
return
RegRead, RegValue
if ErrorLevel
    return
if (A_LoopRegName = "DisplayName")
Filter = %Filter%%RegValue%`%7C
return

[40hz]

For security related and some other stuff:

http://www.dozleng.com/updates/index.php?act=module&module=pages&pg=rss

There are a couple of feeds available.