Software Updates

FreshRSS just got a big upgrade

The open source and self-hostable news aggregator has some

Jordan Gloor

Jordan Gloor

— 2 min read
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The FreshRSS logo on top of a yellow-to-blue sunrise gradient.

Alexandre Alapetite, developer of the FreshRSS self-hosted feed aggregator, announced yesterday the arrival of FreshRSS 1.29. It's the first major release since December 2025, and it adds several quality-of-life enhancements.

What's new

  • Granular sort controls: You can now choose how articles are sorted by default on global, category, and individual feed levels.
  • Feed icons: If a website provides a specific icon for its RSS feed, FreshRSS will now default to using that icon instead of the website's regular favicon.
  • Notification control: In FreshRSS' web interface, you can now enable or disable notifications. Previously, you had to toggle notification permissions for FreshRSS in your web browser's settings, but now FreshRSS has a dedicated toggle button.

What's getting better

  • Duplicate articles: FreshRSS will let you set articles as automatically "read" when it detects an article identical to another already in your subscriptions.
  • Creating user queries: You can now create queries directly in the User Queries interface, meaning you can view and add queries all in one place.
  • Themes: Some of FreshRSS' themes have been enhanced, especially for mobile screens.

What's going away

  • Less-secure protocols: The cURL implementation that FreshRSS uses is now limited to HTTP and HTTPS, leaving out the other 26-ish protocols cURL supports and that FreshRSS has deemed not secure enough.

Zooming out

The FreshRSS web interface using the Nord theme.
This is FreshRSS 1.28.1. I'm still waiting for 1.29 to arrive in DietPi's repositories.

Why this update matters: RSS feeds have experienced something of a renaissance in recent years, as social media feeds and search engines are enshittified by their owners. Open source options like FreshRSS help the internet stay free and accessible.

My take: I use FreshRSS server to track software updates like this. I'm happy to see its continued development.

By the way: Unlike most publications, I make NIL's RSS feed full-text. In other words, you can read my articles completely inside of FreshRSS or whatever aggregator you use. You can support my work with a paid subscription.

Diving in

The fineprint: You can make sure I didn't miss anything important by reading the GitHub release notes.

Get it now: Follow the the server installation guide to get started with your FreshRSS 1.29 server.

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Jordan Gloor © .