The Foundation for IgA Nephropathy provides a feed of current news and research items that are of interest to people who deal with IgA nephropathy. This can be of use to patients, families, friends, as well as health professionals. We scan all current news in the field of nephrology and select items to include only news that is genuinely applicable to this subject. This includes IgA nephropathy itself, plus relevant aspects of chronic renal insufficiency, end-stage renal disease, dialysis and kidney transplants. 

You don't have to deal with feeds at all if you don't want to, because we provide a complete copy of the feed as an ordinary web page. You need only click on the HTML button, just as you click on the News item in the sidebar menu of the website.

Reading news on web page

This is the HTML icon. Clicking on it takes you to the web page version of our feed. You simply read whatever you want to read on it, and you don't need to know anything whatsoever about RSS/Atom feeds. It's just another web page on the website, just like our News page always has been. This may be perfectly adequate for you if you only check the news on this website. However, most people end up subscribing to many feeds, and to integrate them all into one convenient package, you need to use a feed reader or a feed aggregator.

Reading the news feed using a feed reader

If you do wish to take advantage of RSS feeds however, you need only click on the feed icon. It presents the exact same information, but in a different way. The advantages of feeds only become obvious if you keep track of more than one feed or blog, as most people inevitably do. Most blogs provide an RSS or Atom feed.

A feed is read in a feed reader, also called a feed aggregator (the latter usually have more abilities to search and filter feeds). This type of program is like a special Internet browser that only goes to feeds you select, and displays the news items as a list of items you can click on. Some of the more sophisticated feed aggregators allow you more possibilities such as regular updating of feed and automatic notification of new items. Some also allow you to search or filter the feeds in various ways.

On www.igan.ca, we don't force you to use our feed, but it's there if you wish to use it. This is the feed icon you will see on the various pages of our site:

Feed formats

Feeds are files on the server, just like any other web page, except that instead of being in the traditional format used for web pages (HTML, XHTML, etc.), they are in a very specific XML format. There are two types of feed formats. The first is called RSS and the second is called Atom. Within the RSS type, there are several different formats. At this writing, RSS 2.0 is the one most often used, followed by Atom. Our feed is compatible with both RSS and Atom, and you should be able to read it with any current feedreader or aggregator.

Feedreaders or feed aggregators

There are several ways to read news feeds.

Some people may want to use a web-based feed service, such as Bloglines, Netvibes, or similar services on Yahoo, Google, MSN, etc. In this case, you simply go to them with your browser, the same way as you sign up for a webmail account.

However, it's not necessary to sign up for anything. Your web browser or email program may already include a built-in feedreader which does everything you need. Unlike a web-based feedreader, this is a program on your own computer. It only communicates with the Internet in order to update your feeds or to open links when you click on them, but the feed folder itself is on your computer, not on a web service.

• Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer 7 includes a basic feedreader which will allow you to read everything included in the IgAN feed.
• Firefox. The current versions of Firefox include a very limited ability to read feeds as "Live Bookmarks". A significant disadvantage of Live Bookmarks is that you never see the summary provided by the feed author or editor. Firefox also provides for the easy installation of "add-ons" and this is what we recommend for reading feeds from within Firefox. Check the Add-ons page on the Mozilla website. We suggest Sage or Newsfox if you don't already have one you prefer, but there are many others.
• Opera. Current versions of Opera include their own feedreader.
• Safari. Current versions of Safari include their own feedreader.
• Thunderbird. Includes a built-in feedreader that displays your feeds just like it displays your email.
• Windows Live Mail Desktop version has the ability to display feeds.

If you prefer a standalone feed aggregator or if your browser does not include a feedreader, there are many choices, both commercial and free. This webmaster suggests that if you are new to feeds, you start by using a feedreader built into your browser first (or an add-on feedreader). If you can't upgrade to a current browser, or you eventually find that the built-in feedreaders are not sufficient for your needs, you can download and install a standalone reader. For Windows, SharpReader is free, as is FeedReader (this webmaster's choice). Users of other platforms probably have a feedreader included, such as Liferea in most Linux distributions. One advantage of a good standalone feed reader is that it has access to your default browser while remaining independent of it. This may be be useful if you use more than one browser. Standalone feedreaders or feed aggregators may provide more extensive abilities to search and filter your feeds.

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