Life & fun · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to The HackerNews Follow Discussion Button
The HackerNews Follow Discussion Button is a browser extension that adds follow functionality to Hacker News discussions. Launched in 2012, it allows users to easily track conversations they're interested in without… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. The HackerNews Follow Discussion Button launched in 2012; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
- 1LB
2011 · hnlike.com · its alternatives →
- 2TH
2013 · hn-button.com · its alternatives →
- 3

Privacy-preserving Firefox extension linking to Hacker News discussion; built with Bloom filters and WebAssembly - jstrieb/hackernews-button
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 4

Web Extension: Easily find Hacker News discussions about the page you're currently browsing. - pinoceniccola/what-hn-says-webext
2020 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 5HN
2012 · hncomments.nathancahill.com · its alternatives →
- 6

HN is great for the links people share, but a big part of the value I get comes from reading the discussion around them. I realized I was always opening the article in one tab and the comments in another, constantly switching back and forth. I figured there was probably a simpler way, so I threw together this userscript to merge the two. 1. Clicking a link from Hacker News opens the article with a side panel containing the discussion. It doesn't require your credentials, is resizable, and is easy to tweak if you want to customize it. 2. If you land on an article that has previously been…
Jul 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 7

2013 · chrome.google.com · its alternatives →
- 8FT
2016 · hackernewsfilter.com · its alternatives →
- 9HN
2020 · eliot-jones.com · its alternatives →
- 10

Highlight new comments, mute users & tweak UI on Hacker News
2023 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
- 11

I've been working on and off on a Chrome Extension for Hacker News, the extension focusses on improved usability rather than design. I can almost guarantee that after a day you won't want to go back to regular Hacker News. Give it a try, features include: - Improved readability - Quick inline replies from comments page - Quick profiles with social network info when hovering over usernames - Filtering of stories based on terms and phrases / domain or user - Endless scrolling - Collapsible comment threads - Social sharing for Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Buffer Forks, improvements and comments…
2012 · chrome.google.com · its alternatives →
- 12HN
The best ideas are both simple and outlandish.
2012 · normansoven.com · its alternatives →
- 13IM
2016 · podcastrank.co · its alternatives →
- 14
Newsit▲63Find the discussion around the page you're looking at!
2018 · newsit.benwinding.com · its alternatives →
- 15TU
2011 · hnwho.com · its alternatives →
- 16TH
2022 · coxomb.github.io · its alternatives →
- 17

Curated daily list of blog posts posted on Hacker News. Click to read HackerNews blogs newsletter, by Paul, a Substack publication with hundreds of subscribers.
2020 · hnblogs.substack.com · its alternatives →
- 18HN
I built this several months ago as I was interested to see how the titles of posts evolve/change on HN. It turns out lots of titles are edited every day (in both subjectively and objectively good and bad ways!) and I've found it interesting to see how titles have evolved. The whole thing is automated and is built around a Ruby script that pulls down the titles on the front page at a frequent interval. Any titles for specific story IDs that change get tracked and rendered out to a static HTML page hosted on Netlify. It runs by itself without incident so far. This has been on Show HN…
2019 · hackernewstitles.netlify.com · its alternatives →
- 19

It's been 2 years since the initial release [here](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36102610). The initial version was a very basic prototype which was not available anywhere beyond the GitHub repo. You had to install it as a userscript or load the extension manually. Since then, it remained simple but better, new features include: - Improved accuracy by also using comments to help gauge the topic of discussion and the right keywords. - Published as plugin for more browsers: Chrome, Firefox (including android), and more recently Microsoft Edge. - Support for narrow screens…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 20HF
2014 · hn-follow.desh.es · its alternatives →
- 21

2021 · chrome.google.com · its alternatives →
- 22

The Hacker News front page, with a short video explainer for every story.
24d ago · hn.watch · its alternatives →
- 23

Chrome extension that injects a button to return to HN
2021 · chromewebstore.google.com · its alternatives →
- 24

2016 · chrome.google.com · its alternatives →
Also compare
- Like Button for Hacker News alternatives
- The Hacker News Button alternatives
- Hackernews-Button – Bloom Filter-based, private HN browsing extension alternatives
- Find HN threads about the page you're browsing alternatives
- Hacker News Comments alternatives
- I was tired of opening 2 tabs for every HN link, so I made a userscript alternatives
Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →