Very cool!
Show HN: I was tired of opening 2 tabs for every HN link, so I made a userscript
11–20 of 148 posts
Re: Show HN: I was tired of opening 2 tabs for every HN link, so I made a userscript
#12This is slick. 2 things. 1. If you name your script with the extension .user.js it is easier to click on to automatically install at least with tampermonkey. 2. When I went to this link from the main page, on mobile I had to scroll to the right to see the (-) to minimize because the sidebar was too large: https://elizabethtai.com/2026/06/10/substack-writers-you-nee... It may make some sense to start minimized so I ca…
is this better than using a chrome extension? i guess people need to have tampermonkey installed and so thats a slightly higher barrier to entry? i wonder if chrome would be interested in "sherlocking" userscripts so that we can distribute non security nightmare code easier.
Tampermonkey isn't better than using a Chrome extension, but it's less friction for a developer to build and distribute a cross browser script. If they build it as an extension, they need to target multiple browsers and get it deployed to the Firefox/Chrome web store.
Re: Show HN: I was tired of opening 2 tabs for every HN link, so I made a userscript
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
is this better than using a chrome extension? i guess people need to have tampermonkey installed and so thats a slightly higher barrier to entry? i wonder if chrome would be interested in "sherlocking" userscripts so that we can distribute non security nightmare code easier.
Tampermonkey isn't better than using a Chrome extension, but it's less friction for a developer to build and distribute a cross browser script. If they build it as an extension, they need to target multiple browsers and get it deployed to the Firefox/Chrome web store.
I love userscripts. Aren't we all using https://github.com/violentmonkey/violentmonkey now though?
thought I realize "if it works it works", https://github.com/Tampermonkey/tampermonkey
Re: Show HN: I was tired of opening 2 tabs for every HN link, so I made a userscript
#14Nice idea ! How do you handle duplicates ?
[Assuming you mean duplicate HN submissions]
I normalize the URL and use HN's Algolia search API to find an existing story with a matching URL. I don't currently handle multiple HN submissions of the same article; I just use the matching story I find.
That being said, I could see creating a historical snapshot of all the times an article has been submitted and building a blended comments section in the future.
Re: Show HN: I was tired of opening 2 tabs for every HN link, so I made a userscript
#15This is slick. 2 things. 1. If you name your script with the extension .user.js it is easier to click on to automatically install at least with tampermonkey. 2. When I went to this link from the main page, on mobile I had to scroll to the right to see the (-) to minimize because the sidebar was too large: https://elizabethtai.com/2026/06/10/substack-writers-you-nee... It may make some sense to start minimized so I ca…
is this better than using a chrome extension? i guess people need to have tampermonkey installed and so thats a slightly higher barrier to entry? i wonder if chrome would be interested in "sherlocking" userscripts so that we can distribute non security nightmare code easier.
Mostly transparency. Since this runs across pages you visit (with the sites controlled by the @include/@exclude rules at the top of the script), I like that the entire source is right there and easy to inspect before installing it.
A userscript also let me iterate quickly without dealing with extension packaging and permissions, but being able to see and tweak the code was a big part of the appeal.
Re: Show HN: I was tired of opening 2 tabs for every HN link, so I made a userscript
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
is this better than using a chrome extension? i guess people need to have tampermonkey installed and so thats a slightly higher barrier to entry? i wonder if chrome would be interested in "sherlocking" userscripts so that we can distribute non security nightmare code easier.
Tampermonkey isn't better than using a Chrome extension, but it's less friction for a developer to build and distribute a cross browser script. If they build it as an extension, they need to target multiple browsers and get it deployed to the Firefox/Chrome web store.
If you can read JS and the user script is not huge, I think it makes a huge difference.
Apart from that, there are APIs exclusive to extensions, e.g. instrumenting client-side communication among tabs with different origins, listing all tabs, basically accessing a special API that sits on a higher-level context, and, while gating certain functionality behind user approval, and forbidding other functionality completely (at least in Manifest 3.0), extensions with the corresponding permissions can do more than a script running in the page context. They can inject these as well, though, even overriding CSP sometimes, as far as I know?
The main problem with these permissions, and WebExtension 3.0 partly was an attempt to improve this, or at least claims it: most people give a second of doubt at best when installing an extension, as long as they think it comes from a trusted source.
Re: Show HN: I was tired of opening 2 tabs for every HN link, so I made a userscript
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tampermonkey isn't better than using a Chrome extension, but it's less friction for a developer to build and distribute a cross browser script. If they build it as an extension, they need to target multiple browsers and get it deployed to the Firefox/Chrome web store.
I love userscripts. Aren't we all using https://github.com/violentmonkey/violentmonkey now though? thought I realize "if it works it works", https://github.com/Tampermonkey/tampermonkey
Not on Safari, but I should migrate on Firefox I’ve read (some controversy).
zip is available only if you're logged-in on GitHub site
Re: Show HN: I was tired of opening 2 tabs for every HN link, so I made a userscript
#18Firefox has a new Split View that's useful for this, but you still have to left click and select open in split view (M) then click the link. You also used to be able on some browsers to craft a link that was href="tab1.html|tab2.html", no idea if that's still a thing or if it was limited to "home page" setting.
I accidentally closed Firefox’s last “you’ve just updated” screen which probably mentioned Split View. Couldn’t re-open it. It’s not this https://www.firefox.com/en-US/firefox/153.0.1/releasenotes/ , know if it’s mirrored?
Re: Show HN: I was tired of opening 2 tabs for every HN link, so I made a userscript
#19I think the amount of upvotes you’re getting here suggests that it might be worth building a proper browser extension for this!
Would you be interested in making one?
Re: Show HN: I was tired of opening 2 tabs for every HN link, so I made a userscript
#20Haha, this is so cool and can't believe I didn't think about it. I've been opening 2 tabs per HN link on my phone since forever!