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Follow Up on Firefox: Atom vs RSS
There were some great comments in Saturday's post regarding the preference Firefox together with a Google Reader has for Atom over RSS feeds. I'll highlight a few below with comments.
MKR pointed out that I would be presented with an RSS option if I commented out the Atom feed. Very true. Any RSS reader SHOULD be able to read any popular RSS format. In fact, if it couldn't, it wouldn't be a very popular reader due to incompatibility issues. However, all of the popular syndications formats provide everything you need to deliver blog content, including title, pub date, and post body to name just three of the fields, so I don't see why they need to play favorites at this point.
Brendan pointed out that Google may prefer Atom since it may work better with their system. He mentions that he personally prefers Atom feeds, so I'd be interested in hearing why that is from him. Personally, I haven't noticed any difference as a feed consumer.
While it's not a mandate to use Atom with Google, as Brendan mentions, if Google steers people toward Atom through Feedburner and Google Reader preferences, it could turn into a de facto standard which is pretty close to becoming a mandate.
Jason gave some great history on the standards debate within syndication.
 bc anonymously comments that this is a known bug, which makes the screenshot to the right even more perplexing to me. In the case of Typepad powered blogs, I generally am presented with all three syndications options as I'd expect to be since that's what the blog publisher presented in their header tag.
To me, this is a control issue. Control is being taken out of the hands of website publishers who provide multiple syndication options for their blog.
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2. Posted by: Jeremy on July 31, 2007 10:37 AM:
As I said in my comment on yesterday's story, this has nothing to do with Google Reader integration reader. (Brendan: Where do you get this idea from?) Google as a company may prefer Atom, but this is not why Firefox only offers the Atom feed. It is because Firefox attempts to simplify the situation where multiple formats are offered by picking the best one, which Firefox (Mozilla) developers have decided is Atom.
Again, Google is not "steering" anything here. Start from a fresh install of Firefox 2.0.0.5 and you'll see the same behaviour, without setting Google Reader as the default feed reader
I believe that in code updates down the pipe (i.e., which will show up eventually in later versions of Firefox) this behaviour is removed, since, as mentioned in a few bugzilla reports, the logic used to detect different formats of the same feed content was creating false positives, hiding feeds with different content.
3. Posted by: Brendan on July 31, 2007 6:43 PM:
So the behaviour has changed in 2.0.0.5+. I'll take that on the chin and admit I missed that. ;)
I have been running 2.0.0.5 however the previous settings to allow RSS or Atom selection seem to have stuck, until I tried the google integration yesterday and updated to 2.0.0.6 today.
I'm still yet to be convinced that this is anything more than a storm in a tea cup. Indeed feedburner, whom an increasing number of content providers use, actually offer an 'all feeds' option that reformats XML to suit pretty much any client.
Of course, IE users aren't affected by this, neither are Safari or Opera. IE alone still commands the browser space.
Choice is still very much available. And again, anyone who actually cares enough about this is going to use whatever feed they want regardless.
4. Posted by: Jeremy on August 1, 2007 8:31 AM:
I don't think this is a big deal, myself. In fact, I think that if Firefox could properly detect multiple formats of the same feed without false positives, this behaviour should be kept in the browser. I agree with the original rationale behind this, that it is confusing to the uninitiated to be presented with several formats.
For the best of both worlds, perhaps an option could be added to the feed pulldown, in smaller, grey type, that says "see other formats" to satisfy those who want the full spectrum of feeds offered.
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1. Posted by: Brendan on July 31, 2007 12:28 AM:
And again I am forced to point at that this only happens if you enable google reader integration.
It is not the de facto for the firefox browser, as shipped.
As for feedburner? They have been providing a 'single feed' burn option for many many months, that takes the donkey work out of having to provide multiple feeds, in RSS and Atom format, as it does so for you.
I really can't help but think this is grasping at straws.
As to my preference for Atom? Apple tend to gravitate to Atom for much of their iTunes XML. It's also focused towards a standard format rather than the upteen RSS versions that have come and gone (and all the backwards support it enforces on developers) and I pretty much tend to prefer working with it over RSS.
RSS does have some helpful uses, such as enclosure support (podcasting) so there is a really cemented base using it, that are unlikely to change any time soon.
RSS isn't dead - Winer has just freaked out because he has a vested interest in it's future, due to his 'Scripting News' formatting being rolled into RSS 0.9 by Dan Libby during RSS early development.
So to (continue) to claim Google are pushing Atom is a bit rich given he's been pushing his own (RSS) barrow for years.
Google aren't limiting reader to Atom only, again, it's the automation that brings Atom to the fore.
I'd recommend the RSS 2 vs Atom primer on Wikipedia for more details on differences
Really, it's comes down to personal taste and to suggest Google , Feedburner and the Mozilla Foundation are all conspiring to push RSS into the dust bin is not in the least bit off base.
Most people will simply want something that just plain works - how it's built or what's under the hood isn't going to keep too many people awake at night.