UserPreferences

LinkConformanceTests

How does your feed reader handle Atom links?

Support for the atom:link element in many feed readers appears to be broken. Horribly in some cases. Some readers die when they encounter links with rel values other than alternate, enclosure or related. Some readers always choose the last atom:link in the entry as the alternate link regardless of the rel attribute value. One reader I found even tries to use the value of atom:id as the alternate link (I'm sorry, but you're not going to get anywhere trying to pull up "tag:snellspace.com,2005/example" in your web browser).

[WWW]http://www.snellspace.com/public/linktests.xml

  1. A single alternate link relation

  2. Two alternate link relations

  3. One of each core link relation

  4. One of each core link relation + an additional alternate link relation

  5. A link relation with rel="license" (non-core link rel defined by an in-progress Internet-Draft... the point being that impls need to be prepared to deal with non-registered, non-uri link rels)

  6. A link relation with rel="http://example.com" (non-core link relation using URI form)

Current results (where the last column signifies full conformance):

(successful result means that the feed reader is able to display the entry and at least provide a link to the alternate)

Aggregator 1 2 3 4 5 6 * Notes
[WWW]Bloglines x x x x x x :( Won't display alternate links without explicit rel attribute.
[WWW]FeedDemon 2.0 ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
[WWW]Firefox 1.5.0.1 (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) :)
[WWW]Google Reader ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
[WWW]Google Home (ig) (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) ? ?
[WWW]Gregarius (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) :) Only exposes the first alternate
[WWW]Internet Explorer 7 Beta2 (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) :) Only exposes the first alternate.
[WWW]JetBrains Omea (./) (./) x x x x x Always chooses the last link in the entry as the alternate, regardless of rel attribute value.
[WWW]JournURL ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
[WWW]Liferea (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) :) Only exposes alternate and enclosure links to users
[WWW]My Yahoo! ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
[WWW]NetNewsWire (./) (./) * (./) * (./) (./) (./) ? only the first alternate of any alternates is exposed, enclosure links work fine, the related and via links get inserted into the content but are broken, the non-spec link types are silent
[WWW]NewsFire (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) :)
[WWW]Netvibes ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
[WWW]Newsgator Online ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
[WWW]Newzcrawler 1.8RC3 ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
[WWW]Opera 9tp2 (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) :)
[WWW]RSS Bandit v1.3.0.42 X X X X X X X Failed to even load the feed with: Refresh feed '\linktest' failed with error: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
[WWW]RSS Owl 1.2 ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
[WWW]Safari 2.02 x x x (./) x x x
[WWW]Sage ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
[WWW]Sharpreader (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) :)
[WWW]SimplePie 1.0.1 (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) :) Exposes all links through API.
[WWW]Snarfer 0.2 (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) :) Only exposes the first alternate.
[WWW]Thunderbird 1.5 (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) :)
[WWW]Universal Feed Parser (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) :)
[WWW]Vienna2 (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) :)
[WWW]Abdera (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) :)

What Link Relations does your Feed Reader support ?

A tick indicates that the client is capable of doing something meaningful with the specified link. However, these results are informational only. RFC4287 doesn't require an Atom Processor to do anything in particular.

Aggregator Alternate Related Self Enclosure Via Extension (non-URI) Extension (URI) Notes
[WWW]Bloglines ? (./) ? ? ? ? ?
[WWW]FeedDemon 2.0 ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
[WWW]Firefox 1.5.0.1 ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
[WWW]Google Reader ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
[WWW]Google Home (ig) ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
[WWW]Gregarius (./) x x (./) x x x
[WWW]Internet Explorer 7 Beta2 (./) x x (./) x x x
[WWW]JetBrains Omega ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
[WWW]JournURL ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
[WWW]Liferea (./) ? ? (./) ? ? ?
[WWW]My Yahoo! ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
[WWW]NetNewsWire ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
[WWW]NewsFire (./) x x (./) x x x
[WWW]Netvibes ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
[WWW]Newsgator Online ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
[WWW]Newzcrawler 1.8RC3 ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
[WWW]Opera 9tp2 (./) (./) ? (./) (./) ? ?
[WWW]RSS Bandit v1.3.0.42 ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
[WWW]RSS Owl 1.2 ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
[WWW]Safari 2.02 (./) x x x x x x
[WWW]Sage ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
[WWW]Sharpreader ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
[WWW]SimplePie 1.0.1 (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) Exposes all links through API.
[WWW]Snarfer 0.2 (./) (./) x (./) (./) x x
[WWW]Thunderbird 1.5 ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
[WWW]Universal Feed Parser (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) exposes all links and rels in feed.links or entries[n].links, maps rel=alternate to feed.link or entries[n].link, maps rel=enclosure to enclosures array
[WWW]Vienna2 (./) (./) ? ? ? ? ?
[WWW]Abdera (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) (./) (./)

Additional Link Rel Tests: http://www.snellspace.com/public/linkreltest.xml

Aggregator IANA URI Case Sensitive
[WWW]Bloglines ? ?
[WWW]FeedDemon 2.0 x (./)
[WWW]Firefox 1.5.0.1 ? ?
[WWW]Google Reader ? ?
[WWW]Google Home (ig) ? ?
[WWW]Gregarius ? ?
[WWW]Internet Explorer 7 Beta2 ? ?
[WWW]JetBrains Omea x x
[WWW]JournURL ? ?
[WWW]Liferea x (./)
[WWW]My Yahoo! ? ?
[WWW]NetNewsWire ? ?
[WWW]NewsFire x (./)
[WWW]Netvibes ? ?
[WWW]Newsgator Online ? ?
[WWW]Newzcrawler 1.8RC3 ? ?
[WWW]Opera 9tp2 ? ?
[WWW]RSS Bandit v1.3.0.42 x (./)
[WWW]RSS Owl 1.2 x (./)
[WWW]Safari 2.02 x (./)
[WWW]Sage ? ?
[WWW]Sharpreader x (./)
[WWW]SimplePie 1.0.1 (./) (./)
[WWW]Snarfer 0.4 (./) x
[WWW]Thunderbird 1.5 (./) (./)
[WWW]Universal Feed Parser ? ?
[WWW]Vienna2 ? ?
[WWW]Abdera (./) (./)

CategoryConformanceTests