HN Companion – web app that enhances the experience of reading HN
HN is all about the rich discussions. We wanted to take the HN experience one step further - to bring the familiar keyboard-first navigation, find interesting viewpoints in the threads and get a gist of long threads so that we can decide which rabbit holes to explore. So we built HN Companion a year ago, and have been refining it ever since. Try it: https://app.hncompanion.com or available as an extension for Firefox / Chrome: [0]. Most AI summarization strips the voices from conversations by flattening threads into a wall of text. This kills the joy of reading HN discussions.…
HN Companion – web app that enhances the experience of reading HN launched on February 10, 2026 with 31 votes, #660 of 16,627 launches that month and more than 95% of that year's launches.
In plain words
HN Companion is a web app and browser extension that enhances Hacker News reading through keyboard-first navigation, thread summaries, and viewpoint discovery. It uses AI to identify interesting perspectives while preserving the conversational structure and voting patterns that make HN discussions valuable, rather than flattening threads into generic text. Available for Firefox and Chrome, it helps readers decide which discussion threads are worth exploring in depth.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
Browser extension for Hacker News. Summaries built for HN. Follow the conversation.
A browser extension to read Hacker News faster with context-aware AI summaries that highlight key debates and contrasting viewpoints. Jump straight to relevant comments. Fly through threads with keyboard shortcuts. HN Companion adds a summary panel directly on Hacker News. You can summarize comment threads with a single click, then read a short, focused overview before you dive in. Unlike generic summarizers, HN Companion preserves the hierarchical structure of conversations. It tracks parent-child relationships between comments, captures diverse viewpoints, and identifies where discussions shift to new topics. This means summaries reflect how HN discussions actually work — with context…from hncompanion.com
In the maker’s words, at launch
HN is all about the rich discussions. We wanted to take the HN experience one step further - to bring the familiar keyboard-first navigation, find interesting viewpoints in the threads and get a gist of long threads so that we can decide which rabbit holes to explore. So we built HN Companion a year ago, and have…
Does a similar job
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