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Life & fun · July 28, 2026

I was tired of opening 2 tabs for every HN link, so I made a userscript

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…

I was tired of opening 2 tabs for every HN link, so I made a userscript launched on July 28, 2026 with 433 votes, #40 of 24,623 launches that month and more than 99% of that year's launches.

Visit github.com ↗Alternativestop 1% of July 2026

In plain words

This userscript enhances Hacker News browsing by displaying articles and their discussions side-by-side instead of requiring separate tabs. When clicking a link from Hacker News, the article opens with a resizable panel showing the associated comments. If an article was previously shared on Hacker News, the script detects it and adds a button to access the discussion panel. No login credentials are required, and users can customize the behavior. It targets people who value both articles and community commentary on Hacker News.

written from the facts on this page · September 2026

From the sources

Backchannel brings the internet's conversations into whatever you're reading. It blends Hacker News, Bluesky, Reddit, and more into a single discussion thread beside any page, then brings those sources together into a blended front page when you're ready to find something new. - twalichiewicz/Backchannel

Nothing went anywhere. HNewhere is now Backchannel . Same project, same history, same install URL, same settings. It was renamed in v1.6.0 when it stopped being about one site: it now offers many sources and each source is a checkbox you control. If you already have it installed it updates itself and renames in place. Your hidden sites, your reading queue, your collapsed threads and your preferences all carry over untouched. It runs on every page, so this matters: there's no backend, no analytics, and no telemetry. Which hosts it contacts depends on which sources you switch on. Webmail, banking, auth flows, and cloud consoles are excluded outright. Full detail, including a host-by-host…from github.com

In the maker’s words, at launch

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…

Does a similar job

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