Thunderbird

Thunderbird is a free, open source e-mail manager.

Why use Thunderbird over just logging into gmail or whatever? It has extra features for compiling RSS feeds, and also IRC chat. I am interested in those extra features so I'm not so reliant on google, discord, and other social medias. I also wish to separate my e-mails (which is mostly work stuff) from my browser habits (which is mostly “fun” stuff like social media and watching videos). And I want to see all my emails from all my inboxes at once.

I'm using a fork called Betterbird, mostly so I can have fun rainbow indicators for my emails. And cuz the vanilla Thunderbird lags a lot on my computer with my 50000 emails. For the purposes of this page, Betterbird and Thunderbird are the same thing and I'll be referring the program as Thunderbird mostly.

Installation was straightforward for me. Download, install, open up. Connect the email addresses you want. And then they're all there. Protonmail doesn't work though, something about the encryption? And the official proton-thunderbird bridge is paywalled. Oh well, I'll just log in proton manually.

So the big thing with me using Betterbird is color coding my inboxes so I don't forget who I am and what I'm replying to.

Look at the top menu. Tools→Account Settings, you can choose your colors for each account here.

A lot of the default “themes” for mozilla add-ons now only changes the header and leaves the reading area bright eye-searing white. You may wish to change the colors to something more pleasant.

• Catpuccin has themes for everything, including Thunderbird. Download the .xpi file you want from the themes folder, then go to tools→addons and themes→themes→gear button→install add-on from file. Select the .xpi file you downloaded. Voila, a better dark mode.
• Or customize your own CSS if you have time.

Definition from Becky's site:

An RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed, also known as a webfeed, is a way to keep track of website updates all across the Internet. They're usually either an .xml, .rss or .atom file type. Tumblr, bsky, youtube and a majority of newspapers use RSS.

Most mainstream sites from youtube, instagram, tumblr, mastodon have an RSS feed automatically generated. Many personal sites have RSS feeds hand-written by the site owner. You read the RSS feed in an RSS reader. After trying a bunch of browser RSS readers like Inoreader and Feedbro, I have settled on Thunderbird as my RSS reader since I'm most likely to check my RSS along with my e-mail since they're similar formats.

1. Look on the top menu. Click New→Feed Account.

2. Copy/paste the url you get for the RSS feed into the Feed URL box. In my example, it's https://nitter.kuuro.net/SKUMSUCK/rss for my twitter account.

3. Press ok. Your feed will now start loading. You will start getting updates in Thunderbird for the RSS feed.

You can get updates for your favorite tags and pairings! Go to https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Dale%20Gribble*s*John%20Redcorn/worksthe tag you'd like to follow. Look for the RSS icon in the top-right corner of the page.

Copy that link into your reader (in this case, Betterbird).

Voila, now you'll get updates for that tag in your reader.

This is very useful for keeping track of rare pairs that you're just WAITING to get one update every 4 years, which is like every pairing I like. It's also nice to keep track of your ships if you keep forgetting what you want to request for exchanges. And keeping track of the ship tag is cool too, cuz for some rare pair exchanges you'll have to check what the number of works is to see if it's eligible.

The folder structure is really weird though. Not sure how I can make one folder check everything at once… for now, the method I'm using to organize my ships is this folder structure, making sure to check “create subfolder” everytime I add a feed.

• AO3 ships
  • ship 1 folder
    • ship rss
  • ship 2 folder
    • ship rss

This makes it so I can click on each ship tag individually, rather than having every ship from different series in one feed.

Twitter sucks. The UI sucks, and you have to log in to read half the shit. So RSS is a way to keep up with artists and accounts that are for some reason still on twitter, without having to log in and see all the other shit.

Tried Rss.app. Sign in required, paywalled. But it works if you want to pay for that lmao.

Nitter: Nitter is software is a way to access Twitter without logging into twitter. It will also generate a clean RSS feed. There is a main Nitter instance, but it doesn't generate RSS for whatever reason.

• The Nitter kuuro instance will generate RSS for accounts. Navigate to the account you want RSS for, then right click→copy link on the signal icon in the corner to get the RSS feed.

• The images aren't working rn in my case, but maybe they'll fix that LOL. So this is better for text-only accounts right now. In my searches, it seems you need to ask one-on-one to allow nitter to work with your feed reader.

This one is super simple. All Tumblr blogs have RSS automatically!

1. If the URL is https://tempural.tumblr.com, add /rss to the end of the link! The slash is important.
2. So the URL for the feed will be https://tempural.tumblr.com/rss.
3. Put that URL in your reader. It just works.

The RSS feed will show original posts, asks, and reblogs. It will also show images.

Very simple too. All Mastodon profiles have RSS automatically.

1. If your URL is https://blorbo.social/@scumsuck, add .rss to the end. The dot is important.
2. So the URL for the feed will be https://blorbo.social/@scumsuck.rss.
3. Put that URL in your reader. It just works.

The RSS feed will be comprised of public posts and unlisted posts. It will also show images. The RSS feed does not include shared posts (retoots) or private posts.

IDK if the RSS method works for other fediverse stuff like GoToSocial or Misskey or WAFRN, etc. I'll try that some other time. Read more about RSS and fediverse.