Continued abuse of the service from automated apps, AI tools, web scrapers and bots
Resolved
The unusually large amounts traffic at extremely rapid rates that come from automation tools and bots have always had a negative impact on the performance of the service. But, Open RSS has still tried to accommodate the behavior, mainly to prevent disrupting the experience for the users relying on these tools.
However, the number of automated tools engaging in this abusive behavior has become large enough to severely degrade the service to unusable levels. Additionally, despite restrictions being placed upon these applications, they still find ways to evade them, and continue the abusive behavior with new methods.
The amount of time required to combat this behavior is extravagant and, with limited donations, we're unable to afford the additional costs required to continue accommodating the behavior. Continuing to chase solutions isn't feasible and frankly, has become quite a threat to the long-term sustainability of the organization.
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To resolve this issue, we've restricted RSS feed generation and updates to only verified and known applications. If you are an RSS reader developer or using a self-hosted RSS reader, please contact us for verification.
Even if you are not the developer of an unverified application you'd like to use with Open RSS, you can still contact us so we can work with the developer to get the application verified.
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Due to bots also using the feed preview pages to abuse the service, previewing a feed in a web browser will now likely show a heavily cached version of the feed. The feed will not be updated with new content unless it's used in a verified RSS reader or if previewing the feed after logging in as a monthly donor.