How do you browse Hacker News?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35154643

by bundie • 3 years ago

22 51 3 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Hey everyone,

I'm curious about how you all browse Hacker News. Do you use the website, mobile app, or a desktop client? If you use a desktop client, which one do you prefer and why?

slater• 3 years ago

Website.

Also, there's a way to make polls on HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll

theGeatZhopa• 3 years ago

I faved the "new" URL and keep refreshing the site in one if the 50+ tabs on my mobile browser, whenever I feel bored.

No app, no client, no whatsever. That's one news site among lots others and not worth setting up a read-flow around.

if one's so into news, Bloomberg terminal 24k/y, msy be a proper client. But not for me.

Why the question?

legrande• 3 years ago

I don't use any third party HN clients made by other people, for privacy reasons. All those clients are neat, but you don't know what they're doing in the background unless you start firing up debuggers. The HN site itself is enough and last time I checked there's no trackers and it even works with JS disabled. I use a mix of my phone and my desktop PC. (Phone for casual surfing of /newest and my desktop for commenting and submitting posts).

algoatecorn• 3 years ago

Desktop: bookmark

Phone: URL shortcut icon on home screen

Both are fine. I can't imagine an app would provide much more value, especially with the privacy cost.

brudgers• 3 years ago

Too much.

Sometimes.

Good luck.

(sent from my iPhone)

hollerith5• 3 years ago

I don't like how the home page at http://news.ycombinator.com/ sorts by a combination of score and time-since-posting because that means that I end up scanning each entry (story title) over and over.

In contrast, if they were sorted strictly by time-since-posting, I would probably quickly be able to tell once my scan of the list reached the part of the list I had already seen.

Someone else (many years ago) had the same thought as what I wrote above, motivating him to create http://hckrnews.com/, which is mainly what I use to find stories to read. (I also use https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%s&sort=byDate to find stories to read.)

CRConrad5• 3 years ago

if they were sorted strictly by time-since-posting

Isn't that exactly what you get on the “New” page?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newest

hollerith5• 3 years ago

That page shows all stories whereas hckrnews.com shows only stories that are or were on HN's front page.

yesenadam• 3 years ago

Or you could press hide once you've seen a story.

I sometimes use hckrnews.com, but not for that reason - it's good for catching up on what's been on the front page if I haven't been here lately.

hollerith5• 3 years ago

I hadn't considered that.

seymon• 3 years ago

Materialistic Android App. Unfortunately it is not anymore in the Google Play Store. It's the best hackernews android app in my opinion. What android app do you use?

skrblr• 3 years ago

Materialistic became buggy for me in terms of UI elements arbitrarily switching to different themes (pixel 5a). I switched to Harmonic and have been very happy with it.

RealCodingOtaku• 3 years ago

You can find it in F-Droid[1], it still has the old version though. And it is not in active development.

[1] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/io.github.hidroh.materialist...

DANmode• 3 years ago

If the F-Droid version is the old version, the new one must be incredible!

fraXis• 3 years ago

I use a combination of the following:

Browser:

1) news.ycombinator.com 2) daemonology.net/hn-daily 3) hckrnews.com 4) hn.premii.com 5) hn.algolia.com

iOS:

HACK for Hacker News Reader

RSS:

hnrss.github.io

tipsytoad• 3 years ago

Harmonic on android. Best by far from what I can find

spikyllama• 3 years ago

Harmonic is an excellent app.

artogahr• 3 years ago

Commenting this +1 from Harmonic on Android, it's fantastic.

jonas-w• 3 years ago

+1, tried many other apps, but nothing beats harmonic. Only downside is, that it makes hackernews too addicting.

Snacklive• 3 years ago

+1 To this, harmonic is my primary way to browse HN. Great app

nexus7556• 3 years ago

HACK for iOS is the best client I’ve found on iOS. https://apps.apple.com/app/id1464477788

On desktop I use the website but install HNES extension to help with some of the formatting.

d4rkp4ttern• 3 years ago

Indeed this is the best and only way I browse HN. It’s a far better experience than the desktop HN page.

slyall• 3 years ago

I follow the twitter feed, rarely click on anything but see topics go by and semi-remember them for later (or I sometimes open up the site right-away).

2-3 times a day I go to the site on a desktop browser. Scroll through the first 2-3 pages (logged in, standard view) and open a tab for the story and discussion. Work though these gradually.

Occasionally I open the site on my phone but find a pain to use it that way (and I'm not logged in).

dpifke• 3 years ago

Firefox (desktop and Android) with uBlock Origin list that hides the tee-vee news, blogspam, and off-topic garbage: https://pifke.org/hn.txt

swipee• 3 years ago

Desktop: Website iOS: Octal

Because everyone else links to their preferred apps: https://apps.apple.com/se/app/octal-for-hacker-news/id130888...

dredmorbius• 3 years ago

Web.

On desktop, I use my own custom CSS hacks to restyle the site:

Dred's HN CSS Madhackery: <https://pastebin.com/gLXiqKyd>

Dred's HN CSS Madhackery -- Dark Mode: <https://pastebin.com/6PF3dCXH>

(Those are linked in my HN profile.)

zak-wrench• 3 years ago

Through materialistic app, it's no longer on google app but can be found on f-droid

precompute• 3 years ago

Desktop browser with hastily written custom CSS (https://pastebin.com/CEjLKFar) and the "Dark Reader" add-on.

karmakaze• 3 years ago

Own web client[0]. Click the date title for yesterday.

It was handy having all the SVB stories grouped separately.

[0] https://hackerer.news/

partyguy• 3 years ago

Currently using the "Glider"¹ client on Android. Pretty happy with it so far.

¹ https://www.f-droid.org/en/packages/nl.viter.glider/

web3-is-a-scam• 3 years ago

I just use safari on my phone

mutant• 3 years ago

Hacki for Hacker News (Hacki is a simple noiseless Hacker News client that is just enough.) https://f-droid.org/packages/com.jiaqifeng.hacki/

I really enjoy Hacki when mobile

wkat4242• 3 years ago

Web mainly.. And glider for Android.

schweiber• 3 years ago

I created this(https://plaihn.vercel.app/) for myself specifically for mobile viewing as I wanted something decluttered compared to all the IOS apps that I’ve used before. Not saying they’re any less but I personally wanted something very simple. I wish to create a comment section within that as well in the future.

theowenyoung• 3 years ago

I use https://hn.buzzing.cc/ to browser Hacker News in both Chinese and English.

ThePowerOfFuet• 3 years ago

I use the Glider app, which runs great on GrapheneOS.

CRConrad5• 3 years ago

Obsessively. HTH!

_piif• 3 years ago

Glider for Android

https://f-droid.org/packages/nl.viter.glider/

Aperocky• 3 years ago

Try this terminal client out: https://github.com/Aperocky/hnterminal

`pip install hnterminal`

gigantino• 3 years ago

I use my own custom client since I couldn't find anything that satisfied me enough, and the ones that looked nice didn't work without JS. You can find it over at https://hn.gigantino.dev, while the source is at https://github.com/gigantino/hn

rpastuszak• 3 years ago

news.ycombinator.com with 150% zoom

mdwalters• 3 years ago

The website

data_base• 3 years ago

I use a small Firefox extension I made that displays HN in the sidebar, and offers a keyboard shortcut to toggle it.

https://github.com/datastring/firefox-hacker-news-in-sidebar

adityamwagh• 3 years ago

I use Octal, Free with $5.99 for paid features (commenting, etc)

Great UI, performant app and the developer is quite active in pushing updates.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/octal-for-hacker-news/id130888...

kevviiinn• 3 years ago

You have to pay to comment? That's ridiculous. Just make it a paid app

anonomousename• 3 years ago

I assume the free version is meant to be used as a trial to evaluate the quality of the client. There is a “Share HN Link” option for each comment where you can comment on the webpage. After using it for free for a year or so, I paid because it’s one of my favorite clients on iOS.

How do you browse Hacker News?

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