The new Internet Explorer 7 has an RSS feed reader built in. Here’s how you subscribe to a blog using this new feature.
I’m using the blog Time Goes By as my example, because this post was inspired by a woman on a conference call among several of the readers of Time Goes By who said she read the blog but didn’t know how to subscribe to a feed. There were all sorts of suggestions given to her, but since Microsoft is encouraging everyone to download the new IE7, I thought that might be the easiest way to go for her, and perhaps for others too.
To see the feeds you are subscribed to in IE, open the Feeds toolbar. It is under Tools > Toolbars > Feeds.
That opens up a panel on the side of the browser where you can see Favorites and Feeds. It appears at the left in the following image. If you want to add a feed, look for the orange icon that symbolizes the presence of a feed. There’s an arrow pointing to it in the following image.
If that orange icon is not grayed out, it means the site you are visiting has a feed, and you can subscribe. Click it.
A new window opens. At the top there’s a box that says this page has a feed and a link that says Subscribe to this feed. Click it.
IE7 asks you again if you really want to subscribe to this feed, and you must click the Subscribe button. After that the feed will be in your panel on the left and you can click it just like clicking on a Favorite. The feed will automatically update each time the blog you’ve subscribe to posts something new.