Bug or feature?
There's something about Firefox that's been bugging me for a long time now and, more than being a mere inconvenience, I feel that it is a design decision that Mozilla took that runs counter to the spirit of the web as an open platform.
At first sight, the feature I'm talking about seems harmless enough; useful even. If you have Google Reader set as your feed reader in Firefox, clicking on an RSS feed takes you to the Google Reader "Add to Google" page, giving you the option of adding the feed either to your Google homepage or to Google Reader.
You can alter the feed reader or service you use to subscribe to feeds under Preferences → Applications → Web Feed, but, unfortunately, the choices you are given do not include seeing the raw XML source of the RSS feed.
An option to see the raw XML source of an RSS feed is also not presented in the context-sensitive menu that you can access by clicking on the feed icon (see below).
The closest option to raw XML in the preferences is the "Preview in Firefox option", which is what Firefox comes with by default. When this option is selected you can view source on the formatted output that Firefox displays by viewing the source of the page. This is good (thanks Terence et. al.), however many people will choose their own feed reader (in my case Google Reader) as their default reader in Firefox and be out of luck when it comes to viewing the source of the feeds.
In some ways, my gripe has more to do with the "Add to Google" page in Google Reader than with Firefox: that page should have a simple link that allows you to see the raw source of the feed you want to view.
As things stand, I feel that Firefox and Google are doing the web a disservice by preventing easy access to the raw XML source for feeds.
The DAMN Fallacy
As a developer, I know that I sometimes have different needs and expectations from the software that I use when compared to non-developers. When I forget this, I usually find myself falling prey to the Developer As everyMaN fallacy (or DAMN). Sometimes, as developers, it is hard for us to remember that the users of our software have different needs to ours. In fact, I blame this DAMN fallacy (and our damn stubbornness) as the root of most usability issues in software. And there's nothing like a little usability testing — even if it is guerilla-style (wink, wink) — to cure this DAMN disease.
However, I don't feel that this is an example of the DAMN fallacy. Instead, I feel that it hints to something a bit more dangerous as tools begin to dumb down the inherently open nature of the Internet in an effort to appeal to mass audiences. The underlying assumption appears to be that to reach a larger base of users, we should treat them as a mass audience of consumers, instead of consumer-producers that are active participants and contributors to the web. Taking that line of thought to its logical conclusion would lead to the AOLization on the World Wide Web — not something I'd ever like to see happen.
Before you think that I am making a mountain out of an anthill, let me try to explain my concerns further.
The importance of View Source
When I first started hacking HTML, I learned a great deal simply by viewing source on web pages. It's no coincidence that I was immensely excited when Flex Builder brought with it the ability to expose the source code for Flex applications. In fact, one of the first things I did was to release a version that did the same thing for ActionScript 3-only projects. And, of course, I made the feature a prominent part of the Flex Quickstart Guides while creating the Quickstarts format on Adobe Developer Connection.
The ability to view the source of any HTML document on the web lies at the heart of its nature as an inherently open system. The same holds true for JavaScript and CSS files, and, until recently, for RSS feeds.
I am worried that this feature in FireFox, coupled with the Google Reader subscription page, effectively hides the source of feeds and is going to hinder an understanding of how RSS and syndication work in a new generation of inquisitive minds. I'm not opposed to making the process of subscribing to feeds easier — quite the contrary, I applaud the effort — however, I do feel that it is of utmost importance that access to the source is provided for people who are interested in peeking under the hood.
To remove the ability to easily access the source of web documents is to lose a fundamental feature of the web and sets a dangerous precedent.
I hope Firefox will implement a simple view source option for RSS feeds and that Google Reader will also expose the the raw XML source of feeds from its feed subscription page.
Have your say!
I'd love to hear your feedback on this. Have you encountered this issue? Do you feel that it's important? Am I making a mountain out of an anthill or do I have valid concerns? Leave a comment and let me know your feelings.
Further reading and resources:
- Feed Proxy: a Firefox plugin that exposes the raw XML output of feeds
- XML in Firefox is a major problem (mozilla.dev.apps.firefox forum)
- XML View in Mozilla
The Firefox 3’s feed subscription feature: convenience for the masses or a dangerous precedent? article by Aral Balkan, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 UK: England License.
Click on the RSS icon, then press CTRL+U. Shows you the source. Or am I missing something?
It’s even got highlighting.
Or you can simply “Save As”.
I think it’s a default setting in your preferences mate:
I get the option of where to open it, and also an always use this option check box:
http://twitpic.com/ldf7
@Terence Eden: The problem is if you have your settings to always use (for example) Google, visiting http://feeds.feedburner.com/aralbalkan will redirect you to http://www.google.com/ig/add?feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2Faralbalkan every time, so you no longer can view source in browser.
I do like viewing an XML page in IE7 and being able to collapse elements.
Echoing Terence: open the feed, then Ctrl+U or View > Page Source or Right Mouse Btn > View Page Source as w/ every web document. The frightful “Add to Google” page comes only after pressing Subscribe Now btn on the rendered feed page.
Still, I agree w/ you in that this next, reader choosing page could have a View Source btn. FeedBurner’s subscription page is a good example of much better UX, having wide choice of popular readers to choose from PLUS the View Feed XML link you crave for.
But for some mysterious reason the FB “Subscribe Now!” page doesn’t always render on Fx 3 when clicking on FB feed link – e.g. like in this very blog. Try w/ other browsers to see FB’s approach for sure.
Thanks Terence (and Rob, Mike, and Lembit). I’ve updated the article based on your comments. I guess I clicked the option to make Google Reader my default reader and forgot about the initial option.
Regardless, Google Reader is my default reader and I still want to be able to access the source of the feeds. So, while it’s nice that we can view source on the Preview page, I still feel that the Google Reader home page should have a link to the feed’s source.
I’ll revise the article again to make it clear that the issue isn’t with Firefox per se, but with the Google Reader subscription page.
That said, it would be nice if Firefox provided an out-of-box way of seeing the source on feeds, possibly form the feed icon menu in the address bar.
moz makes something like 95% of it’s revenue from google. we basically only still have FF because of google.
well you can see where that argument might go.. better the devil you know etc.. it’s a valiant fight against MS.. sensible default behaviours being sacrificed for a business model (culture vs. profit?)… the google option a better default than source alone.. education, technology invisibilty, etc etc…
we gave up a LOT to google already, the data they already have from reader, analytics, feedburner, blogger, gmail, groups, etc etc… so what? it’s not exactly a tip of the iceburg, it’s more like the iceburg has melted and flooded us all already.
Hey Josh, I hear you but I don’t think it would damage Mozilla’s deal with Google to include a tiny little link to the raw XML source for feeds :)
haha, finally someone else that this annoys the hell out of! :-)
Everytime I need to debug an rss feed, or for some reason check how it looks like I need to switch from FF to Opera to view the source there..
I hear ya – when I got really desparate, I just loaded the feed into a swf and output it from there.
Turns out this worked perfectly for me – and since then i’ve never had to worry about it. But I guess that only works for flashies, and not for HTML’ers.
I’ve been annoyed by the same thing recently… Especially when I was trying to debug an RSS feed I was creating… I came across this handy little page which helps a little although I agree that it should be available within the browser (plus the page converts the RSS so you aren’t seeing the raw source but a beautified version of it):
http://planetozh.com/projects/rss2html/
This is a very good point. I learned HTML exactly the way you described (literally by viewing source code and messing around with it), and I still think the ability to do things like that is valuable and important.
Hi Aral,
A lot of websites include different formats (Atom, Rss) for the same feed and eventually different feeds (news, articles etc).
Do you want FF to list them all in the address bar ?
Denis
I hope whoever decided to change the behavior of Firefox 2 to this crap goes to hell.
*smacks forehead* Thank you for this. Ya know, I looking applications but I was looking for “RSS feeds” or XML not “Web Feeds”. Trying to debug my rss right now and it has been SO painful!
Type this in the address bar:
view-source:http://your.feed.url/
Hope that helps. ;)
Yup – this behavior is most annoying. I’ve just removed google reader as my default feed reader allowing me to view source again.
I just found this website from searching out of frustration for a solution! A much needed feature I agree.