The best tool I've found for reading HN is this front page summary: https://hackernews.betacat.io/
So it's like HN but with GDPR popovers and interstitial ads.
Beyond the Front Page: A Personal Guide to Hacker News
71–80 of 106 posts
Re: Beyond the Front Page: A Personal Guide to Hacker News
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personally I use this bookmarklet to check if sites have been submitted since I like to minimize extensions: javascript:void(location.href="https://hn.algolia.com/?query="+location.href)
That sends every page you check to Algolia's API, which is what jstrieb's extension is designed to avoid.
It sounds like both the extension and bookmarklet don't send every page you visit but do send every page you check.
Re: Beyond the Front Page: A Personal Guide to Hacker News
#73IMO one of the things that makes HN so special is the "culture" here. Having been on here since 2018, most folks here are acutely aware of the issues that other sites like Reddit have and we all collectively work to preserve this space so it doesn't become like the other places. If I see a meme on Reddit I would probably upvote it, but if I see that exact same meme on here I would downvote and probably report it too.…
Just checked my homepage, and realized that I created an account in May 2008! 17 years of Hacker News. Practically a lifetime. Time flies.
Re: Beyond the Front Page: A Personal Guide to Hacker News
#74IMO one of the things that makes HN so special is the "culture" here. Having been on here since 2018, most folks here are acutely aware of the issues that other sites like Reddit have and we all collectively work to preserve this space so it doesn't become like the other places. If I see a meme on Reddit I would probably upvote it, but if I see that exact same meme on here I would downvote and probably report it too.…
Just checked my homepage, and realized that I created an account in May 2008! 17 years of Hacker News. Practically a lifetime. Time flies.
If you really wanna trip, use the HN API and find some of your earliest comments and go read them
Re: Beyond the Front Page: A Personal Guide to Hacker News
#75IMO one of the things that makes HN so special is the "culture" here. Having been on here since 2018, most folks here are acutely aware of the issues that other sites like Reddit have and we all collectively work to preserve this space so it doesn't become like the other places. If I see a meme on Reddit I would probably upvote it, but if I see that exact same meme on here I would downvote and probably report it too.…
Interesting, for me Hacker News is just about being reasonable. Consequently, I find all other online places so far unreasonable. I am on Reddit, but honestly, it’s more of an anthropology thing rather than anything else. Sometimes I see if I can vibe with the subreddits, and I can. The problem is usually I feel awful because a good faith discussion generally can’t be held. To me, vibing in many subreddits just means…
Can definitely understand that... Most of my Reddit use is limited to a few more technical subreddits that are focused on older tech. I can't stomach going anywhere near the political subs, for example.
Re: Beyond the Front Page: A Personal Guide to Hacker News
#76IMO one of the things that makes HN so special is the "culture" here. Having been on here since 2018, most folks here are acutely aware of the issues that other sites like Reddit have and we all collectively work to preserve this space so it doesn't become like the other places. If I see a meme on Reddit I would probably upvote it, but if I see that exact same meme on here I would downvote and probably report it too.…
You just made me look at how long I've been coming here. I'm still internally struggling with whether that is something I needed to know!
Didn't realize it'd been 13 years for me, and I felt like I came into this space relatively late. lol.
Re: Beyond the Front Page: A Personal Guide to Hacker News
#77This is my personal and minimal guide to HN (for whoever might be interested): ! Hacker News ! =========== ! Remove AI-related entries (Top: title / url) news.ycombinator.com##tr.submission span.titleline > a:has-text(/\b(AI|GPT|MCP|LLMs?|Chatbot|Copilot|Gemini)\b/):upward(tr) ! Remove AI-related entries (Bottom: stats / comments) news.ycombinator.com##tr.submission span.titleline > a:has-text(/\b(AI|GPT|MCP|LLMs?|Ch…
I may need to add this myself... I get flagged at work every time I hit an AI website regardless of if it's a blog article or not.
Re: Beyond the Front Page: A Personal Guide to Hacker News
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personally I use this bookmarklet to check if sites have been submitted since I like to minimize extensions: javascript:void(location.href="https://hn.algolia.com/?query="+location.href)
That sends every page you check to Algolia's API, which is what jstrieb's extension is designed to avoid.
Oh totally I wasn't suggesting that as a direct replacement but more an alternate approach and that privacy factor is important to consider. Apologies if that wasn't clear. Personally I don't check that often so the occasional connection on click isn't serious vs the complexities of adding another extension even if it's a neat one.
I think you may be overlooking some nuance related to that extension vs my solution though. Extensions like that check every page you visit whereas my approach only checks on click so there is a much greater need for privacy solutions with extensions like that since they would normally be sending out your entire browser history in real time to the api.
Jstriebs solution seems pretty neat though and it's definitely something I'll keep in mind for similar use cases even if I skip using it to minimize my extension usage. I was happy to hear about it and read how it worked.
Re: Beyond the Front Page: A Personal Guide to Hacker News
#79IMO one of the things that makes HN so special is the "culture" here. Having been on here since 2018, most folks here are acutely aware of the issues that other sites like Reddit have and we all collectively work to preserve this space so it doesn't become like the other places. If I see a meme on Reddit I would probably upvote it, but if I see that exact same meme on here I would downvote and probably report it too.…
Interesting, for me Hacker News is just about being reasonable. Consequently, I find all other online places so far unreasonable. I am on Reddit, but honestly, it’s more of an anthropology thing rather than anything else. Sometimes I see if I can vibe with the subreddits, and I can. The problem is usually I feel awful because a good faith discussion generally can’t be held. To me, vibing in many subreddits just means…
What's been a learning experience for me is seeing Reddit, HN, Facebook, discords, private slacks, and the mainstream media discuss some thing I went through, and the different faces they all have about it. Reddit was just a barrel of negativity about it. So was half of TikTok. Facebook however was mostly full of positivity and happiness, but obviously my Facebook feed is curated to be my Facebook friends. Maybe it's something about the "anyone can join" aspect that both enhances but also destroys the community?
Re: Beyond the Front Page: A Personal Guide to Hacker News
#80The best comments are at the bottom. I’ve been twaddling here long enough to know what the most upvoted take will be, so unless it’s a personal anecdote it’s not worth reading. The real juicers are usually buried near the bottom of the page, a few comments above where the apathy and sarcasm start bleeding into grey.
There is also a place to find posts which are down-weighted, admin putting their finger on the scale in one way or another.
Show dead in settings here also can have a few gems if you feel like digging for them.