Subscribe to YouTube Video Channels in Vivaldi without extensions

[harlan4096]

Vivaldi Technology introduced the long-awaited mail client in the company's Vivaldi web browser last month. The client integrates mail, a calendar, and news feed reading into the Vivaldi browser. The functionality is being tested in snapshot builds currently, but will eventually become available in stable versions of the web browser.

YouTube supports RSS but Google is doing its best to push users towards signing-up for an account and using the built-in subscription system instead. Our guide on finding YouTube RSS feed links and using them is still valid, but the option to get a subscription feed of all a user's subscriptions on YouTube has been removed.

Vivaldi improves the discoverability of YouTube RSS feeds in the browser by integrating the functionality directly in it. When you visit a YouTube page with a feed, you will see the new RSS icon in the address bar. It is displayed to the right of the address to indicate that a feed is available.

Click on the icon, select one of the listed RSS feeds if there is more than one, and then either preview to see a preview of the feed or subscribe to add it to Vivaldi's RSS feed reader.

Tip: The RSS icon is displayed on other sites as well, e.g. here on Ghacks you will see two feeds that you may subscribe to using the icon.

Vivaldi notifies about new items that are published by subscribed feeds via its notification system but also by showing the number of unread items in the sidebar and status bar.

Just open the Mail client in Vivaldi and switch to the Feeds to see all subscribed feeds. Select one to display its items, and then one of the entries to read it in the browser. In the case of YouTube, it is even possible to watch the video right in the feed reader.

One caveat for now is that you cannot rename the feed title. YouTube feeds display as "RSS" only, and if you subscribe to multiple, you will end up with multiple RSS entries that you cannot distinguish between just by looking at them.

Closing Words

Vivaldi continues to improve the usability of the browser. Both features, mail client and RSS feed detection, are only available in snapshot builds for now. Still, if you use RSS you may find Vivaldi useful for that purpose. There is some work to be done, considering that the feed client lacks options such as OPML feed importing that would allow users to switch to Vivaldi.

You can download the latest snapshot of the browser from the Vivaldi website.

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