Reading Your LiveJournal F-List via an RSS Reader // VOID-STAR.NET

Okay, so now that I’ve scared you all about LiveJournal’s evil malware-serving ads, I’ve been asked by a couple of people how they should go about continuing to read their LiveJournal friends’ list if they’re not actually hitting up the site itself. Well, the good news is that it’s not difficult, and you can do it with an RSS reader. For those of you who’ve never used such a thing — or at least never used one to browse friends-only posts on LiveJournal — then today is your lucky day; it’s a tutorial.ⁱ

Before we begin…

First things first: You will still need an account at LJ for this to work. Thems the breaks.

Second things second: You’ll need to pick an RSS reader that supports something that’s called digest authentication. This tutorial is specifically written for Mozilla Thunderbird, which is a top-notch email and RSS reader available for Windows, OS X and Linux. There are numerous other options, however, if Thunderbird isn’t to your taste (OS X users, I can recommend Socialite and good ol’ Mail.app).

It’s worth noting that almost no web-based RSS readers will do digest authentication, including (much to my disappointment) current self-hosted solution du jour, Fever.ⁱⁱ

Okay, stop yammering and tell me what to do…

Step 1: Install Thunderbird. I’ll wait until you get back.

Step 2: All done? Now open Thunderbird (if it isn’t already).

Step 3: Hit up Edit > Properties (which, er, may be different if you’re not on Windows).

Step 3

Step 4: The Account Settings window will display. Click Add Account….

Step 4

Step 5: The Account Wizard will appear. Select RSS News & Blogs then hit Next >.

Step 5

Step 6: On the Account Name screen, type in pretty much whatever you want. I went with something obvious.

Step 6

Step 7: Please verify that the information below is correct, then press Finish.

Step 7

Step 8: You’ll now have a little satellite-dish icon-thing in the left-hand pane of Thunderbird. Right-click on it and select Subscribe… from the menu.

Step 8

Step 9: The RSS Subscriptions window will appear. Click Add. (If you’re feeling very technically adept and adventurous at this stage you may follow these instructions and use the Import button, but let’s assume you don’t and continue.)

Step 9

Step 10: Now we finally get to the actually important step. Where it says Feed URL, enter in http://myfriendsjournal.livejournal.com/data/atom?auth=digest. Obviously, you should be changing “myfriendsjournal” to the username of the friend or community you wish to add. The Big Main Important Part of this step, incidentally, is the ?auth=digest bit. That’s the part that tells LiveJournal you want to authenticate to read f-locked posts and the like.

Step 10

Step 11: Once you’re done, click OK. Thunderbird will now prompt you for your LiveJournal username and password; enter them in. Remeber to tick the tickybox if you don’t want to be entering this in every time you open up Thunderbird (hint: you don’t). Click OK.

Step 11

Step 12: Repeat steps 9 through 11 for as many LiveJournal accounts as you want. When you’re all out of accounts, close the RSS Subscriptions window.

Step 12

Step 13: Profit.

Step 13

And that’s it; it’s a bit of a PITA to enter in everyone’s name, but otherwise there you have it. The Secret of Reading Your LiveJournal Friend’s List via RSS.

The best part about this, of course, is that you can also enter in journals from Dreamwidth/InsaneJournal/DeadJournal/wherever using roughly the same method, and you can mix in feeds from blogs and even Facebook. In folders. Experiment. Go nuts. It’ll be fun, honest.

Web 2.0: Welcome to it.

1. I’m sure I’m duplicating content that’s been reproduced elsewhere, but for the moment my Google-fu is failing me, so it’s DIY time. ↩
2. I know it claims to handle authenticated feeds, but trust me; it doesn’t do digest. It does something called HTTP Basic, which isn’t useful for LJ. Save your $30 on that one, hey. ↩