Topic: The Blaze has no content

I notice The Blaze (listed as relaunched) has no content.
I poked around and found this.

http://www.theblaze.com/feeds/feed.rss

Is that what the widget needs?

Re: The Blaze has no content

Well, yes and no - that's very likely the URL the current widget is using.

However, if you fetch that URL today, it actually just redirects to "https://www.theblaze.com/feeds/feed.rss", with requires https support, which some devices are lacking.

The widget therefore needs to be updated to use our (or some other) caching server that can fetch the data on behalf of the widget.

This is probably the second most common reason why widgets are failing to fetch data, after the loss of RSS feeds altogether.  Some feeds redirect several times, some ending on a 404 or eventually just returning no data, some even redirect in a loop.

I just managed to resurrect an old laptop I had in storage that's capable of running an appropriate old version of the Adobe Flash IDE and managed to get some widgets with this particular problem working, but I haven't uploaded them yet.

Re: The Blaze has no content

HTTPS.
That's the push that seems to pervade all sites today, the push towards HTTPS.
But clearly if I read a story, never login or place any sort of order at that site that is just unnecessary.
I read that chrome is going to ban HTTP completely soon, fortunately there is a way to turn that off.
I have had complaints from a web browser about certificate issues, but that is my local router on my private network. It needs what I say it needs. Gee whiz. Who cares?

Duane, thanks, you really are the best.

Re: The Blaze has no content

Steevo wrote:

HTTPS.
That's the push that seems to pervade all sites today, the push towards HTTPS.
But clearly if I read a story, never login or place any sort of order at that site that is just unnecessary.

Well, no, not really.  In the past ISPs have modified content (e.g. inserted advertising, or inserted tracking cookies).  Major ad networks have had malware, so the ISP inserting adverts may end up serving malware.  HTTPS blocks that.  See https://www.sweharris.org/post/2016-05- … webserver/ as to why I use https on my blog site.

Re: The Blaze has no content

sweh wrote:
Steevo wrote:

HTTPS.
That's the push that seems to pervade all sites today, the push towards HTTPS.
But clearly if I read a story, never login or place any sort of order at that site that is just unnecessary.

Well, no, not really.  In the past ISPs have modified content (e.g. inserted advertising, or inserted tracking cookies).  Major ad networks have had malware, so the ISP inserting adverts may end up serving malware.  HTTPS blocks that.  See https://www.sweharris.org/post/2016-05- … webserver/ as to why I use https on my blog site.

That's why I use adblock plus. It's not 100% but it blocks most advertising and malware served that way.