If you can't find an answer to your question here, ask us directly by e-mail.
What is Feed43?
Feed43 (pronounced as “Feed For Free”) is an online service, a proxy between your news reader application and third-party web sites that don't support RSS natively. It allows you to create your own news feeds in RSS format for any web site, i.e. monitor any web site using your favorite news reader.
Is Feed43 really free?
Feed43 is a free service and always will be. However, we have paid plans for those who need more options and faster updates.
What news readers (feed aggregators) are supported?
Any news reader or online service that supports RSS 2.0 feed format will work for you (most of them do). You can use web-based readers like Inoreader or standalone desktop applications like RSSOwl. A list of news readers for different platforms can be found at Wikipedia.
Can I use created feeds to syndicate (publish automatically) information on my web site?
Technically, yes. But there are serious legal implications, since most content authors restrict re-publishing content without prior permission. You can, however, put a link to the feed on your web site. This will violate no copyrights.
Can I share my feeds with others?
Of course you can. Just send them a link to your feed, or even place this link on your web site.
Should I register on your site to start creating feeds?
No, you don't have to. Just use this link without any prior registration. You may, however, create an account to gain some extra facilities like “My Feeds” page, ability to export your feeds as OPML, etc. You may also create a bunch of anonymous feeds first, and add them to your account later.
Will my feeds be public or private?
Your feeds will be public by default, but you have an option to password-protect any of them.
I currently use a «Paid 20» plan. How do I upgrade to «Paid 50» plan?
Just purcahse any of «Paid 50» options (e.g. 1 year renewal). Once you enter the activation code received by email on Feed43 site, yor account will be upgraded to the new plan, and the rest of your money will be converted to additional days according to current plan prices.
If I purchase a paid plan, will the “Delivered by Feed43 service” tagline be removed from all my feeds?
This tagline will be removed from all your feeds marked as ‘paid’. For example, if you have 25 feeds and sign up for a «Paid 20» account, 20 of your feeds will be paid, and the rest 5 will be free (you can choose what feeds are paid and what are free). Paid feeds will not have this tagline, but free feeds will.
Is there any specific policy for paid service regarding IP banning?
Even if you have a paid account, you must obey polling interval for feeds, as defined in your paid plan (one request per hour). If you request a paid feed too often, your IP may be banned temporarily or permanently.
How Feed43 knows what exact part of a web page translate as a feed?
When you create a feed, you specify it's behaviors by the means of search patterns (a sort of regexps, but much simpler). See How it works? section for more information.
How often does Feed43 pulls data from the source web site?
Source web site is pulled at the time you request your feed from within news reader, but not more often than every 6 hours (this is true for free service only; see the comparison chart of our free and paid plans). You are strongly recommended to obey this polling interval (see documentation on you news reader for controlling this behavior), otherwise your IP may be blocked temporarily or permanently, depending on the severity of abuse.
What are the technical limitations of your free service?
Free service provided by Feed43 has the following limitations:
Paid plans have more liberal settings. See the comparison chart of our free and paid plans for more information.
The site I want to monitor with Feed43 updates on a fixed schedule. How can I tell Feed43 to pull data from this site, say, at 9:00am and 6:00pm?
Since Feed43 acts like a proxy and checks the source site at the exact moment you request the feed, all you need is to setup your news reader so it requests the feed at 9:00am and 6:00pm. However, some news readers may not support fixed feed update schedules.
I get “403 Access Denied” error when trying to access feeds on your site. Why?
Your IP has been blocked by our abuse detection system for a too high polling rate. See the list of currently banned IPs. If you feel this is a mistake (or feel remorse and promise not to abuse our system again), please write us.
I get “Feed43 is blocked from accessing specified source page” error when trying to monitor a particular web site. Why?
The owner of the site in question has politely requested us not to allow monitoring his site (or some specific pages) via Feed43 service. We respect content owners and go to meet them in such cases. This may happen if the respective site has it's native news feed already and doesn't want anyone using ‘unofficial’ news feeds. You may contact the owner of the site directly for further explanations. If you are the owner of the site in question and feel this is a mistake, please write us.
How long can I use created feeds (and what if I won't use them)?
You can use feeds as long as you like. However, after 3 months of inactivity (i.e. no one requests a feed for this period), the feed will be deleted automatically. You don't need to explicitly delete abandoned feeds. Just forget about them. However, if you have a Feed43 account, you can delete feeds from your account (log in to your account, open “My Feeds” page and expand the feed details to see the ‘Delete’ option).
Can I 'undelete' a feed?
If you have deleted a feed from your account and want to recover it, use the ‘Add feeds to your account / Undelete feeds’ feature on “My Feeds” page, providing the name of the deleted feed. The recovery option is available for 3 months since the feed was deleted. After that the feed will be wiped out completely.