Brave News: Brave Desktop Users Get Custom RSS Feed Support

Users of the Brave desktop web browser using Brave News, a service that displays news from various online sources on the browser’s new tab page, can now add custom RSS feeds as feeds.

Introduced in 2021 in Brave for iOS, support for custom RSS feeds was a highly requested feature. Allows browser users to add any RSS feed to the news list displayed on the new tab page.

Until now, Brave desktop users could only select news sources that Brave added to the browser’s News feature. Initially called Brave Today, the feature is now known as Brave News.

Brave users can scroll down the browser’s new tab page on desktop machines to get to the section. Users can customize the list with a click of the customize button on the page.

Brave displays a list of categories, Business, Top News, Food, etc., and pre-selected sources that users can individually enable or disable. One shortcoming so far was that there was no option to add other sources to the list.

Brave 1.36.109, released on March 2, 2022, adds support for the missing feature. To add a custom RSS feed to Brave, select customize on the new tab page and enter/paste the address into the feed URL field at the top. Select “add source” once you’re done to add the feed to Brave. The feed is added to the news list from then on.

One difference between custom feeds and shortlisted feeds is that custom feeds don’t have images, even if they do. It only gets the title, the name of the post, and when it was published.

Brave users who want to display news from custom sources can only do so, but must disable each preset source individually, as there is no option to unsubscribe from all of them using a button or switch in the interface. Users may also appreciate an option to import an OPML file, a file that has data in multiple sources, usually exported from source readers. For now, each source must be added individually.

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Support for personalized news will also come to Brave for Android in the future. Brave desktop users can use the new feature to customize the news list on the browser’s new tab page.

Most Internet users who rely on RSS feeds for news reading can use dedicated RSS feed readers as they offer better functionality. However, core users may like the integration of news feeds into their browsers. Please note that Brave displays advertisements as part of the news feed.

Now you: how do you stay informed?

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