Requesting feed content unnecessarily severe
This app is unnecessarily re-requesting feed content from websites without waiting until there's actually new content published.
Why it's a problemThe unnecessary traffic wastes a website's resources that can be used for its other site visitors.
What it means for usersWebsites are likely to limit this app from accessing feed content, causing feeds to not update properly or stop working entirely.
How to fix it
The application needs to be updated to
wait
until the max-age of
Cache-Control header expires before re-requesting
feed content or properly implement
conditional requests.
Not accurately identifying itself critical
Sometimes feed apps provide very little or inaccurate information about themselves to websites when requesting their content, which is what this application is doing. This is usually done to try to blend in with other traffic on the website, stay less noticeable, and decrease the chance websites will classify it as a bad bot trying to bypass a website's restrictions.
Why it's a problemFlying under the radar may be beneficial at times, but when done by a feed reader, it can look very suspicious. So websites are likely to block the application from obtaining feed content for not being identifiable.
What it means for usersIf a website blocks this application for being unidentifiable, which is likely, feeds used in the app won't work.
How to fix itWhen requesting feeds from websites, this app should properly identify itself using a unique User Agent header, with sufficient information so that websites always know what it is.