Avoid Use Of FeedBurner "Password Protector"

Some Google products contain features that have limited usefulness, when applied to Blogger blogs.

FeedBurner has a feature, "Password Protector", which may be useful, to newsfeed readers that support HTTP authentication. Within FeedBurner, we have the "Email Subscriptions" service - which does not support feed authentication.

Your readers will be required to use newsreader or aggregator software that supports authentication to view your feed.

Some Google, and non Google, services will have a problem, with a FeedBurner protected feed.

Newsfeeds, published by Blogger blogs, are supposed to be publicly accessible.

A blog with designated readers will not produce a newsfeed. Blogger does not support authenticated newsfeeds.

To use Password Protector, look on the FeedBurner dashboard, under the Publicize tab, for "Password Protector". Enter a Username and a Password, and hit "Activate". But don't do this, without knowing the downsides.

Password Protector uses a single username / password combination. All blog readers will use the same username.

FeedBurner warns us of possible problems, caused by this service.

Important: This service prevents our Email Subscriptions service from delivering email updates from your feed, and it will also password protect your feed's content when redisplayed using our Headline Animator graphic. This graphic itself becomes password protected, which is undesirable if you wish to use it to promote your site/feed. Therefore, we recommend not using Headline Animator or Email Subscriptions, and this Password Protector service, with the same feed.

From what I can see, Blogger Reading List may ignore the authentication requirement. People may use Reading List, and view the blog feed, redirected through FeedBurner - even if not authorized.

We know, however, that email subscriptions will not work, with a protected feed. Looking at an HTTP trace of the feed from my test blog http://techdict.nitecruzr.net, we see a symptom of the problem, with this option.

http://techdict.nitecruzr.net/feeds/posts/default

http://www.rexswain.com/cgi-bin/httpview.cgi?url=http://techdict.nitecruzr.net/feeds/posts/default&uag=Mozilla/5.0+(X11%3B+CrOS+armv7l+7834.70.0)+AppleWebKit/537.36+(KHTML,+like+Gecko)+Chrome/49.0.2623.112+Safari/537.36&ref=http://www.rexswain.com/httpview.html&aen=&req=GET&ver=1.1&fmt=AUTO

Sending request:

GET /feeds/posts/default HTTP/1.1
Host: techdict.nitecruzr.net
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; CrOS armv7l 7834.70.0) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/49.0.2623.112 Safari/537.36
Referer: http://www.rexswain.com/httpview.html
Connection: close
• Finding host IP address...
• Host IP address = 74.125.28.121

• Finding TCP protocol...
• Binding to local socket...
• Connecting to host...
• Sending request...
• Waiting for response...
Receiving Header:

HTTP/1.1·302·Found(CR)(LF)
ETag:·W/"32e869db-18a9-4ccf-8ad9-dbded29f2b25"(CR)(LF)
Date:·Wed,·27·Apr·2016·15:04:06·GMT(CR)(LF)
Content-Type:·text/html(CR)(LF)
Server:·blogger-renderd(CR)(LF)
Expires:·Wed,·27·Apr·2016·15:04:07·GMT(CR)(LF)

Cache-Control:·public,·must-revalidate,·proxy-revalidate,·max-age=1(CR)(LF)
X-Content-Type-Options:·nosniff(CR)(LF)
X-XSS-Protection:·1;·mode=block(CR)(LF)
Location:·http://feeds.feedburner.com/ChucksTechWorld(CR)(LF)

This appears to be just a redirected blog posts newsfeed, targeting a FeedBurner published feed.

Here, we see a normal redirected blog posts feed.

But what happens, when we try to open the feed?

http://www.rexswain.com/cgi-bin/httpview.cgi?url=http://feeds.feedburner.com/ChucksTechWorld&uag=Mozilla/5.0+(X11%3B+CrOS+armv7l+7834.70.0)+AppleWebKit/537.36+(KHTML,+like+Gecko)+Chrome/49.0.2623.112+Safari/537.36&ref=http://www.rexswain.com/httpview.html&aen=&req=GET&ver=1.1&fmt=TXT

Sending request:

GET /ChucksTechWorld HTTP/1.1 HTTP/1.1

Host: feeds.feedburner.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; CrOS armv7l 7834.70.0) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/49.0.2623.112 Safari/537.36
Referer: http://www.rexswain.com/httpview.html
Connection: close
• Finding host IP address...
• Host IP address = 172.217.0.14

• Finding TCP protocol...
• Binding to local socket...
• Connecting to host...
• Sending request...
• Waiting for response...
Receiving Header:

HTTP/1.1·401·Unauthorized(CR)(LF)

WWW-Authenticate:·BASIC·realm="FeedBurner·feed·ChucksTechWorld"(CR)(LF)

The "HTTP Viewer" service does not support feed authentication (and only works with "HTTP:" protocol). And, we see the result.

It's possible that this feature will be useful, with feeds that are used outside Blogger (noting the Reading List ability). If you're publishing a Blogger blog, however, you're not likely to get any useful result.

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Owners of #Blogger blogs, which use the FeedBurner "Password Protector" service, may find that the service delivers less protection - and some interference - other than the service name suggests. It would probably be best to avoid use of this service.

Correct Your Post, After Using MS Word

Sometimes, advice provided in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue, comes too late.

Telling people to avoid use of MS Word, for composing posts, is one example of "too late". But maybe this delinquency can be repaired.

Blogger provides the the page / post editor "Remove formatting" tool ("Tx"), for removing unwanted formatting.

When you've just published your post - and can't figure out why the formatting is all whacky - or maybe you can't get the post successfully passed through a FeedBurner feed - the most obvious way to correct the post is to use Notepad, or a similar text editor.

But that's a pain, and it's rather complicated. Maybe there's an easier solution.

Like an over edited post - or a victim of too much switching between Compose and HTML modes - the "Remove formatting" tool ("Tx") might save you, here.

Select everything in the page / post.

And use the editor "Remove formatting" tool ("Tx").


As in the previous example, you may have to spend a few hours adding essential formatting back. But with MS Word meta formatting, aren't you better off getting rid of all of that, at once?

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Some #Blogger blog owners publish posts full of junk meta formatting, courtesy of MS Word - then look for a quick solution. Copying out then back, using Notepad / WordPad, or a similar text editor is the most obvious solution - but it's a painfully complicated one.

Maybe this is another case when the page / post editor "Remove formatting" tool can save the day.

FeedBurner Feeds Not Being Updated

Recently in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, we've seen a few reports of blog feeds that aren't updating promptly.

With FeedBurner, is it a good idea to diagnose any problems experienced.

After a brief feed diagnostic procedure, we do an HTTP trace of the feed.

Sending request:

GET /feeds/posts/default HTTP/1.1
Host: myblog.blogspot.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3
Referer: http://www.rexswain.com/httpview.html
Connection: close

• Finding host IP address...
• Host IP address = 74.125.19.191
• Finding TCP protocol...
• Binding to local socket...
• Connecting to host...
• Sending request...
• Waiting for response...

Receiving Header:

HTTP/1.1·302·Moved·Temporarily(CR)(LF)
Content-Type:·text/html;·charset=UTF-8(CR)(LF)
X-Frame-Options:·ALLOWALL(CR)(LF)
Location:·http://feeds.feedburner.com/MyCustomFeed(CR)(LF)

OK, the feed is redirected to FeedBurner.

Given a problem involving FeedBurner, it is a good idea to use the FeedBurner "Troubleshootize" wizard.

All feed problems won't involve FeedBurner - and all FeedBurner problems won't affect only the blog subscription options - but a careful diagnostic procedure is still a good idea.

Diagnosing Problems With Blog Feeds

Recently, we're seeing an assortment of complaints about blog feeds, either not working at all, or updating slowly. Whether presented in a browser display, in a Following Reading List / Google Reader, or in a bloglist gadget, the accuracy of the feed as displayed can be affected by a few issues.

• Custom feed redirection.
• Custom Domain redirection.
• Classic vs New feed URL, and Blogger vs BlogSpot / domain served feed.
• Feeds served by third party servers (FTP publishing).
• Feeds from private blogs (which don't exist).
• Cached feed content.

Custom Feed Redirection

A custom, redirected feed, redirected through FeedBurner or a similar service, will be affected by problems with the service. When you check out a problem with a redirected feed, it may be helpful to compare the redirected feed content with the non redirected feed content.

Custom Domain Redirection

A feed coming from a blog that's published to a custom domain will be affected by the custom domain DNS issues. Feeds redirected through DNS addresses that use spurious solutions, like frames or URL forwarding, will be slow to, or never, update.

When you check out a problem with a feed from a blog published to a custom domain, start by examining the DNS setup for the domain. For each person reporting a problem, see if they are using the BlogSpot URL, or the domain URL. If the former, check the BlogSpot to domain redirection.

Feed Format and Source

For any feed with a problem reported, find out if the problem is with a classic, or a new, feed URL. The exact feed URL may be relevant. Look at the 3 feeds served from this blog page, as provided in the blog header.

<link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="The Real Blogger Status - Atom" href="http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/feeds/posts/default" />
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="The Real Blogger Status - RSS" href="http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss" />
<link rel="service.post" type="application/atom+xml" title="The Real Blogger Status - Atom" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/24069595/posts/default" />

Here, we have 2 new URL feeds served from the custom domain, plus one feed served from Blogger.com.

Third Party (FTP Published) Feeds

When you're looking at feed URLs, watch out for a feed that comes from an external third party server. Feeds published from non Google servers may have many issues. Use of the Blogger based feed, vs the third party server served feed, may be especially significant. We've even recommended use of the Blogger served feed, as a workaround for feed problems in some FTP published blogs.

Feeds From Private Blogs

A feed coming from a private blog will never be updated. If the blog was just made private, you'll be seeing the blog feed as it was before the blog was made private, for a long time.

Effects Of Caching Upon Your Clients

Also, consider the effects of cache. Your readers that are affected by a local cache, or an upstream cache, will see irregular performance when they view a feed. Depending upon the nature of a blog, a given blog may have more readers who use a bloglist or feed reader, and who have Internet service that includes an upstream cache. A regional, or reader service, affinity may point to a cache issue.

Summary - When Reporting A Problem

Anybody reporting a problem with a feed viewed in somebody else's blog should state their geographical location, ISP name, and type of Internet service. Anybody subscribed to a feed with a problem should state the complete and precise URL of the feed. All of these details may be relevant to the problem.

All of these are details which will affect peoples access to any blog feed, and the displayed content in the bloglists and feed readers which they view.

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