how i followed my favorite sites through the years
I generally follow everything through RSS. It's a protocol for providing updates, so you can follow multiple sites at once. Most sites have an RSS feed, although it may be hidden.
At first, I started using RSS because I got tired of going to all the sites for webcomics I followed. With an RSS reader, I could just place all the RSS feeds for each comic in one place and see all their updates! Now, I use it mainly to follow bearblogs and science journals/blogs.
Google Reader, one the last times I used it
About 10 years ago, I used Google Reader for this. It was by far the most popular RSS reader. Then, Google abruptly shut it down without much explanation. There was some speculation that it was in favor of Google+, but who knows. Some say Google Reader shutting down was a defining moment in the shift from a small distributed web to one mainly controlled by large corporations. I don't know if this was the cause, but I definitely felt a shift in interest in blogs over the following years. Many people definitely quit using RSS readers altogether after the shutdown, relying on feeds from Facebook or Twitter. The web changed.
Inoreader, a pretty nice RSS reader
I was stubborn and shopped around for another RSS reader. Inoreader seemed nice and clean, so I stayed there for a few years. Over a few years, they started adding ads and raising costs, so I thought about switching away.
Newsblur, RSS reader with open source interface
Somehow, I landed on Newsblur. The interface was less shiny, but I liked that the code was fully open-source, so that I could host my own instance if I wanted to. It made it feel safer as a platform. Of course, I never ended up actually hosting it since it was too much trouble and just resolved to pay for the default service. I used this for a few years as well.
Fraidycat, a way to follow sites but not in a feed
Recently, while looking through the referrers to my website in my stats, I found that someone landed here from https://fraidyc.at. It sounded enticing, so I clicked through and found a new kind of way to follow websites! Rather than a feed, it shows when each website got updated and with categories. It made it really easy to see which ones were still active and catch up on all the posts from an author. I'm still getting used to this format over a feed, but it has been growing on me.
I feel like I'm more actively picking what I want to read, whereas before I was a passive consumer of a curated feed.
I will likely continue reading RSS for a while more. It's so nice to keep up with the indie web!