Comments Owl for Hacker News

Comments Owl for Hacker News

Makes it easer to follow comment threads on Hacker News across multiple visits, adds the ability to annotate and mute other users, plus some other UI and UX tweaks

What is Comments Owl for Hacker News?
Comments Owl for Hacker News is a Firefox add-on that makes it easier to follow comment threads on Hacker News across multiple visits. It highlights new comments, collapses threads without new comments, and allows users to annotate and mute other users. It also offers various UI and UX tweaks for a better browsing experience.
Merlin
Stats
Users: 68 ▲ 3
Version: 2.2.0 (Last updated: 2023-10-19)
Creation date: 2019-08-17
Weekly download count: NaN
Firefox on Android: Yes
Risk impact: Low risk impact
Risk likelihood: Moderate risk likelihood
Manifest version: 2
Permissions:
  • contextMenus
  • storage
Size: 52.03K
URLs: Website
Stats date:

Other platforms

Not available on Chrome
Not available on Edge
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Merlin
Summary

Makes it easer to follow comment threads on Hacker News across multiple visits, showing which items have new comments, highlighting new comments and collapsing threads without new comments. It also adds the ability to annotate and mute other users, plus other UI and UX tweaks.

Features:

List pages:

  • Show new comment counts since you last viewed each item - clicking on the "X new" link will highlight new comments and collapse comment trees which don't contain any new comments
  • Prevent accidental flagging and hiding on mobile by making the "flag" and "hide" controls require confirmation, or hiding them
Item pages:
  • Highlight new comments and collapse comment trees which don't contain any new comments when you revisit an item's comments - you can configure whether or not this happens automatically when you revisit
  • Default comment folding controls are replaced with a Reddit-style left-aligned control, with a slightly larger hit target
  • Manually highlight the X most-recent comments using the new "highlight comments" link on an item
  • Mute users to hide their comments and replies to them - muted users can be managed on your own profile page
    • Logged out users get a new 'muted' link in the header they can use to manage their muted users
  • Add your own notes to other users on their profile page - the first line will be displayed next to their comments
  • Toggle display of "reply" links below comments to make more room for comments on the screen
  • Increased distance between the upvote and downvote arrows on mobile
  • Increase the contrast of submission text
Navigation:
  • Hide navigation items you don't use
  • Add an "upvoted" link to the header to make it easier to get back to previously visited items
  • Improves mobile navigation by display links below other header contents
Safety
Risk impact

Comments Owl for Hacker News is relatively safe to use as it requires very minimum permissions.

Risk likelihood

Comments Owl for Hacker News is probably trust-worthy. Prefer other publishers if available. Exercise caution when installing this add-on.

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Screenshots