In a comment on my previous post on the Atom/RSS feed link, hcgtv pointed out that when clicking the Atom link, he was asked to download it. Actually, this is not a bug, it's a feature: the atom.php file sends it contents as application/atom+xml (it's listed in the Atom Syndication format spec, but I don't see any requirements about this). I would expect feed readers to subscribe to this MIME type and allow you to subscribe to the feed when opening it.
In general, Atom and RSS are not meant to be displayed in a browser as raw XML. In comes the feed:// URI scheme. With this scheme, clicked feed links will open in your feed reader. FeedDemon v1.10 (which I use) supports this scheme. I don't know about others, but I expect it to become common use soon.
There are actually two approaches to avoid the XML showing up in the browser: one is to use the feed:// URI scheme. The other is to apply some style to the feeds like Blogger and Blog:CMS do (example). Or both :)

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