Rippy the Aggregator 0.13

Rippy the Aggregator project is a lightweight RSS aggregator written in vanilla PHP.
There are several Web sites (Slashdot, for instance) that I visit regularly or semi-regularly to check for the latest news; there are also several more (like, say, the EFF) that post regular updates and that Id like to visit regularly, or that would like to have me visit regularly, but which I dont visit regularly because its just too much work to keep track of all of them, and too disappointing when I remember to check and find nothing new. I even run a Web site of my own which Id like to have people check regularly - but since I dont spend time making the rounds of my friends similar sites, I cant expect them to visit mine. Rippy the Aggregator aims to solve all these problems.
There is a standard called RSS, for Web sites to publish their updates in a machine-readable format. An appropriate client can quickly visit all the Web sites youre interested in, download their updates, and present you with a customized list of all the newest items. Most "blogging", "portal", and "content management" software already generates RSS files (although its operators may be unaware of that!), and there are services like Syndic8 that compile lists of RSS "feeds". So it only remains to get an appropriate client.
That presents a problem. I hacked an RSS output onto my Web-site updating scripts, so I had that aspect covered, but then I wanted to start reading others RSS feeds, and I discovered that the client programs you can get on the Web mostly suck. Some of them are Windows-only, so those are right out. I saw one in Java that looked pretty good, but its Web site didnt provide a way to download it except through some kind of weird Hot-Buzzy-Java-Scripted-Auto-Virus-Install-Plugin-Thing - there was no actual file. I did eventually find its source code, but it required third-party libraries.
Then I looked at several RSS readers that were written in Perl or PHP and designed to run as scripts on a Web site. Those had possibilities, but they required multiple third-party libraries (Perl) or an SQL server and compiled-in PHP modules that most people dont have (PHP).
The best attempt I found was one written in Python, but in order to make it run I had to start not one but two background server daemons, which would make it tricky to use on my office computer at school. There are Web sites that provide the service of RSS reading, but they all require registration, cookies, JavaScript, etc. I couldnt find an RSS reader (or "aggregator", as theyre called) that I could just download and have it work. Thus, it was necessary to create one: enter Rippy!
The name "Rippy the Aggregator" refers to an Arrogant Worms song about a cute, cuddly little alligator who goes "chomp, chomp, chomp," down in the bottom of the swamp, swamp, swamp. Abram Hindle has suggested that Rippy the Aggregator should go "grep, grep, grep," down in the bottom of the net, net, net. Anyone wanna write the rest of the song?
Main features:
- Cute name
- Written in PHP (needs 4.3.0 or above)
- Doesnt require any compiled-in optional libraries that dont ship with PHP
- Stores its cached data in flat files, no database needed
- Freely licensed and customizable under the GNU GPL version 2
Enhancements:
- Parser ruggedness and general stability were improved, and support was added for setting options like user agent and proxying when acting as an HTTP client.