What is RSS?
RSS is a web technology that allows you to have news and information delivered straight to you from you favourite web sites rather than you having to vist each one individually.
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and it allows you to be automatically notified when web sites add new content. You can get the information delivered to you in one place without spending time browsing the web. Web sites that provide their content in this way have pages that are known as RSS feeds. These are just like normal web pages but they are not designed to be read by people. Instead they are designed to read by computer software which then presents the information to a user.
Not all web sites provide their content through RSS Feeds but many do including the BBC, The Age Newspaper and many health related web sites such as Medical News Today.
How do I use RSS?
You will need a piece of software called a newsreader. This is software that reads the RSS feeds that you tell it to read and it then presents the feed information to you.
There are many different newsreaders available. Some of them can be downlaoded and installed on your computer. Others are browser based services. The advantage of browser based services is that you can access your RSS feed subscriptions from any computer.
Subscribing to RSS Feeds
Web sites that offer RSS feeds will provide a link to the RSS Feed page. Often a graphic like this 
is used to identify a link to an RSS feed. You can then click on the link and copy and paste the URL of the link into your newsreader software.
Some browsers such as Firefox, Opera, Safari and Internet Explorer 7.0 will check for RSS links when you visit a normal web page. This can make subscribing to an RSS feed much easier.
RSS in Plain English
If none of the above has made much sense to you then this video explains the principles in plainer English.