Opera Not Using Feed Icon

Tuesday, Jun. 13 2006 | Author: jeremy

With the latest build release of Opera 9, the browser has switched back to using the blue RSS icon rather than the feed icon that Firefox started using, followed by IE7. It has actually become the “standard” icon for showing that RSS feeds are available. So why did Opera decide not to use it?

Regarding the old RSS icon: Mozilla would like us (and other users of it) to sign an agreement on the use of the feeds icon. We fully respect their rights to the icon and will not use it as long as this isn’t sorted out.

It is odd that they have decided not to use an icon that is freely available at www.feedicons.com. Maybe there is an agreement that must be used when it is in a product verses just using it on a site.

At any rate, it is odd that they have decided not to use it in the browser, but is plastered all over the site they announced this on to indicate RSS feeds.

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5 Responses for "Opera Not Using Feed Icon"

Marco (Griffith) Jardim

June 13th, 2006 at 2:06 pm
1

I don’t mean to sound harsh, but why should Opera be “forced” to adapt the icon adapted by Mozilla and IE?

If IE hadn’t taken the Feed icon from Mozilla, we would continue to have dozens of different icons and no one would really care or discuss it much. Just because IE suddenly chose to use the same one as Mozilla doesn’t make it a standard.

Sure, it would be nice if we all spoke English and got along nicely. But there’s nothing forcing us to do so either.
Julian

June 13th, 2006 at 5:34 pm
2

feedicons.com sucks, they made the icon look ugly. Unlike the one in current Firefox version. Yes, there is a difference.
Tyler

June 13th, 2006 at 10:40 pm
3

Who decided it the standard?
kRuSHa

June 16th, 2006 at 10:37 am
4

As I understand, the problem is solved and the Mozilla icon will be used according to http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/blog/show.dml/299740 .
tollie williams

July 1st, 2006 at 6:32 am
5

I wish they wouldn’t use it.

The Opera “feed reader” is quite possibly the worst I’ve ever used and certainly a far cry from what IE has implemented and the Feedview Extension UI that Firefox has been working on incorporating. On the other hand, Safari, whose feed view is similar (but still very lacking in functionality) chooses to use its blue RSS icon instead.

It’s a non-issue anyways. Users who can figure out how to install and use an “alternative” browser will figure out how their “alternative” does feeds. The real issue here is to encourage website authors to find some consistently in linking to RSS feeds, or just drop the links entirely and use auto-discovery.

I’m tired of seeing: A) a gazillion ’subscribe me, add me, digg me, vote for me, share me’ buttons screaming of pseudo-self-importance B) Obscured links to three different versions of feeds, none of which have any icons, buried somewhere 75.2% down the sidebar and no auto-discovery mechanism in place. and C) Orange XML/RSS images that link not to a main site feed, but to an HTML 4.0/transitional landing page for hundreds of feeds broken down by category of which the majority haven’t been updated in over a year.