A browser extension that makes Hacker News feel more familiar, readable, and interactive while keeping the official site, links, and account actions intact.
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Get RedHN
| Chrome | Firefox | Edge |
|---|---|---|
| Chrome Web Store | Firefox Add-ons | Edge Add-ons |
Motivation
RedHN brings a Reddit-style UX to Hacker News: card-based stories, clearer discussion threads, familiar actions, theme controls, and easier navigation, all while staying on HN. It is built for readers who love HN's content but prefer the comfort and flow of a more modern social-news interface.
Demo
Watch the higher-quality MP4 demo
Features
Card-based story feed
Stories become scannable cards with HN metadata, voting, links, comments, hide, and viewed states.
| Hacker News | RedHN Light | RedHN Dark |
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Sticky navigation and search
A sticky top bar, search, sidebar, and quick links make HN feeds easier to move through.
| Hacker News | RedHN Light | RedHN Dark |
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Visual comment threading
Thread guides, collapse controls, reply counts, inline replies, and reveal-more states make discussions easier to follow.
| Hacker News | RedHN Light | RedHN Dark |
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Hacker News actions still work
Voting, hiding, favoriting, replying, login, signup, submit, account, and logout actions still use HN's own links and forms.
| Hacker News | RedHN Light | RedHN Dark |
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Reading preferences and local state
Theme controls, viewed-story styling, read state, and mute filters let readers tune the interface locally.
| Hacker News | RedHN Light | RedHN Dark |
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Profile pages with more context
Profiles show karma, join date, about text, activity, submissions, comments, favorites, upvotes, and account controls.
| Hacker News | RedHN Light | RedHN Dark |
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A friendlier submit flow
Submit modes separate Hacker News, Ask HN, and Show HN posts with clearer URL, title, body, and rule feedback.
| Hacker News | RedHN Light | RedHN Dark |
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Classic fallback and isolated styling
The popup toggle restores classic HN immediately, while Shadow DOM keeps RedHN styling isolated.
| Hacker News | RedHN Light | RedHN Dark |
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Privacy
RedHN stores settings and read state locally in browser extension storage. It does not add analytics, tracking, ads, remote code, or a RedHN-operated backend.
RedHN runs on supported news.ycombinator.com pages and requests public metadata from the official read-only Hacker News Firebase API at https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/.
Privacy policy: https://fanjin.org/blog/redhn-privacy-policy
License
MIT