Firefox and Vista RSS Platform
I whipped up a quick tool to allow Firefox to integrate with Vista’s Common RSS Feed List. You can download and install it here.
After installing, you need to select “Tools | Options” in Firefox, then click the “Subscribe … using” radio button, the “Choose Application” button.
Browse to C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Common Feed List\Common Feed List.exe. After selecting this, you can switch back to “Show me a Preview”.
Now every time you view an RSS feed, you will have the option to subscribe to it using the Common Feed List, which will make the feed show up in Vista Sidebar, Windows Live Mail Desktop, IE7, or any other client you have configured to sync with the feed list.
If you want to look at the source code, you can download it here.
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When you subscribe using the Common Feed List, you are using the RSS engine built-in to IE7. Feeds subscribed in this way save your machine bandwidth, since only one copy of each feed is downloaded even if multiple applications use the feed. You also get multi-machine sync of feeds and read/unread status, and ability to read your feeds in the cloud or on Macintosh or mobile for free.
IE7 on Windows Vista runs in a “sandbox” called Protected Mode, which limits the amount of damage that can be caused by in-process exploits. Since protected mode is an operating system level constraint applied on a per-process basis, protected mode does not apply to IETab running in Firefox on Vista. Therefore, if you want Protected Mode, you should use IE7, which includes the subscribe experience shown above by default.
January 27th, 2007 at 9:58 am
[…] Update: I wrote the ten lines of code necessary to make Firefox integrate with Vista’s RSS platform. Here it is. […]
February 27th, 2007 at 10:46 am
Hey thanks a lot. You sure know your rss. lol Now I have the option to rss feed through Firefox, for the vista rss gadget. And I’ll have to agree with you that Firefox should be able to read windows vista’s IE7 common rss feeds. It defiantly saves the amount of bandwidth you use, and I’m on 56k so it doesn’t waist any of my connection. Thanks again.
March 3rd, 2007 at 5:12 pm
Genious! Pissed me off pretty good when I couldn’t get the RSS feeds working with the sidebar
Thanks alot!
March 3rd, 2007 at 6:39 pm
[…] Har du forresten problemer med å få RSS-feeds fra Firefox inn til sidebaren, last ned denne lille saken. […]
March 7th, 2007 at 5:15 am
Been looking all over for solution. Thanks!
March 8th, 2007 at 7:00 am
This is a great tool. It’s exactly what I’ve been looking for. Thanks very much.
April 29th, 2007 at 8:28 am
Error subscribing the file exists 0×80070050 on every feed. Any ideas why?
October 14th, 2007 at 10:18 am
Error 0×80070050 is occured if you are adding RSS feed with DTDs, because Internet Explorer does not support feeds with DTDs.
October 26th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Error Subscribing: Value does not fall within the expected range.
Is anyone else getting this error?
November 9th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
I’m trying to use your tool with Firefox 3. It installed fine and i successfully added to the list of applications available for subscribing to RSS feeds, but when i actually try to subscribe i get a message that says: “Error subscribing: value does not fall within the expected range.” Could you help me solve the problem? Thanks a lot.