Hacker News,
without the squint.

I got frustrated with modern’s lack of maintenance and decided to build my own. Open news.ycombinator.com and Easy takes over the page.

Add to Chrome

The redesigned Hacker News front page displayed in Easy for Hacker News.

How it works

Easy restyles the page Hacker News already sends you. You get the same stories and the same account, just easier to read.

Story rows in Easy for Hacker News, each with the domain, points, author, age and comment count.

Scannable lists

Domain, score, author, age and comment count on every row.

A thread in Easy for Hacker News with comfortably spaced, nested comments.

Readable comments

Comfortable line lengths, nesting you can follow, and one-click collapse.

The Easy for Hacker News story list with one row selected by keyboard, shown on a darker background with an upvote arrow.

Keyboard navigation

jk to move, o to open, c for comments.

The Easy for Hacker News settings panel, with theme, font, font size and density controls.

Reading controls

Theme, font, size and density.

Frequently asked questions

How do I install it?

Get it from the Chrome Web Store. Click Add to Chrome and it’s ready. No separate app, no account.

Is there a version for Firefox?

Not yet. There’s no listing on the Firefox Add-ons store, but you can build and load it manually: grab easyhn-<version>-firefox.zip from Releases, open about:debugging#/runtime/this-firefox, choose Load Temporary Add-on, and select the zip itself without unzipping it. Firefox drops temporary add-ons when it restarts, so you’ll reload it each session.

If a Firefox listing matters to you, open an issue on GitHub.

Does anything I read leave my browser?

No. Easy restyles the markup Hacker News already sent to your browser. There’s no API, no server in between, no tracking and no account.

Can I still upvote and reply?

Yes. Log in from the header. The upvote arrows and the inline reply box then work through your existing Hacker News session.

Does it break the rest of Hacker News?

No. Pages Easy doesn’t redesign are left untouched, so everything else on the site works as usual.

What happens if Hacker News changes their HTML?

Because Easy reads Hacker News’ own server-rendered markup, a significant change there can break it. It’s MIT-licensed on GitHub, so issues and PRs are welcome.

Free and open source, and it never asks you to sign up for anything.