Really Simple Syndication (or RSS) allows you to receive your favorite blog, news stories, or other RSS capable items in your RSS read (or aggregator.) Here's an example.
Everyday, I write a tip and post it to my blog. When I post it, FeedBurner (What I use for RSS) updates my RSS feed. Then, those people who have subscribed to my feed will be notified by their feed readers. After this, they can read my article while they are off the internet.
Let me explain this in greater detail.
When I write my tip, I publish it to my blog. When FeedBurner sees that I've updated my blog, they publish the new entry to my feed. Now, FeedBurner will ping my blog, "asking" about new entries, every 30 minutes or so. However, if I feel the need to, I can ping FeedBurner and they'll update my feed when I ping them. Once somebody has subscribed to my feed in their feed reader, their feed reader will ping my blog, at the set times, asking if there are any new articles. When there are new feed items, their feed reader will download the new feed items. Then, they can read the new articles off-line.
Safari and RSS
Safari is capable of both detecting and reading feeds.
When it does detect a feed, it will display a little blue RSS logo on the right hand side of the address bar.
To edit your RSS settings in Safari, go to Safari>Preferences>RSS. In this preference tab, you can choose your default RSS reader, choose which feeds are updated automatically, and how often to remove the articles that you've read already. Keep in mind that an article does take up some space. (Especially if it has pictures.) Thus, you'll probably want to set that to Two weeks or One month.
If you want to speed up Safari, I would suggest that you delete all the feeds that you don't read. To easily do this, go to your Safari Bookmarks manager (Cmd-Option-B) and click on the "All RSS Feeds". Then delete the ones you don't use.
After you've deleted all the feeds you won't be reading, drag and drop the feeds you will read into the folders you want. I have it set up so that I have a Feed folder in my bookmarks bar. Then, whenever your subscribed feeds update, it will display a number next to the folder.
When your subscribed feeds are updated, Safari will display a number next to that feed. This number tells you how many new articles there are. In your preferences, you can choose what color you want new feed articles to be. (Or even if you want them colored at all.) When you have this option selected, the new articles dates will be in that font color. When there are new articles, Safari will download them automatically. Now, when you're on the train or at a restaurant, you can read your feeds without internet.
RSS in FireFox
Like Safari, FireFox is capable of detecting RSS feeds. However, firefox doesn't have a feed reader. To subscribe to a detected feed in FireFox, merely click on the RSS logo on the right-hand side of the address bar.
At first, when you click on this logo, it will open up a preview page. However, if you so choose, you can get rid of the preview. Also, you can choose your default feed reader. I've chosen safari. After you've chose your default reader, it will open up the feed in your feed reader. (In my case, Safari.) From there, you would go through the normal subscription steps.
RSS in 3rd Party Applications.
There are many different kinds of RSS Aggregators. Some are online (such as Google Reader, or BlogLines). Others are offline. (NewsFire, or NetNewsWire.) I can't reccomend any specific 3rd party reader because I just use Safari for the 2 RSS feeds that I'm subscribed to.
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