Making the Internet the Web Again

Back to stories Open in a window
Article news.ycombinator.com

Making the Internet the Web Again

Before it was called the internet[1], it was called the web, the World Wide Web. That name wasn’t just a label; it was a bold proclamation of intent. Unlike the desktop platforms that came before it, this new platform wasn’t isolated software. It was connections. The web let users explore and discover content made by many producers. Discovery was the core experience. The interconnected nature of the platform was so central, it became its very name.

But over time, we stopped “browsing the web” and started “using the internet.” In that shift, we lost something fundamental.

The transitions that drove to this change made sense at first. Who can “crawl the web” better than a human? A computer. So we built search engines: Yahoo, AltaVista, Google. What can discover appealing content more efficiently than clicking links and opening tab after tab? A recommendation algorithm. So we built feeds: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok.

But these sites, once tools for exploration, grew dependent on ad revenue, twisting their incentives toward a single goal: maximizing the time you spend looking at ads. What started as a better way to explore the vast content of the web became a system for keeping your eyes locked on a small subset of its content—ads.

Where does that leave those of us who want to explore? Who crave ideas that challenge our assumptions? Personally, I find myself stuck on the same few sites, longing for the original promise of the web while recognizing that version of it is dead.

But I also find myself wondering: Can we bring it back? Not to destroy the ad-driven aggregators (a lot of people seem to like them), but to build something for the rest of us. Something that makes exploring the internet feel more like surfing than doomscrolling.

If this resonates with you, let’s talk. I’ve started to ideate and build prototypes toward this goal and would love to collaborate with fellow explorers. What tools would help you explore the web more? What tools would improve the quality of your time exploring? Drop a comment below. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

[1] Okay, yes, before it was the web, it was the internet. And yes, the internet and the web are not the same thing. All valid points, but not the point. I’m talking about how the average person thinks about going online. First, it was "the web." Then, over time, the webbiness of the web, was lost.

Discussion 16 comments · 5 points · mcwhittemore · 2025-02-27
Open on HN
Loading the discussion…

Domain filters

Stories from these domains are hidden from every list. Subdomains match too: blocking substack.com also hides danluu.substack.com. The list is kept in this browser only.

Help

Keyboard

j / k
Move down and up the story list. The arrow keys scroll whatever has focus.
Enter
Read the marked story in the article reader.
]
Read the next story in the same article-reader applet. Back returns to the previous story.
p
Pin or unpin the marked story, which keeps it in Pinned.
n / N
Move to the next or previous top-level comment in the window in front.
c
Collapse or expand that comment.
f
Hide or show the story list.
Esc
Close a menu or this help.
Access key m
Go to the menu bar. Most browsers take it with Alt on Windows and Linux, and Safari with Control and Option.
?
Show this help.

Windows

Each story opens in a window holding its article above its discussion; drag the bar between them to share the room differently. A window can be moved by its title bar, resized from any edge, snapped to a half or a corner by dragging it there, maximised, or minimised to the bar at the foot of the page. Use Window > New reader window to open an empty reader, or a story row's Open in new reader window button to compare articles. Docked readers keep their articles when you select another story from the sidebar. Minimized readers can be restored and reused for their site. A window's Next story link reads on down the list in the same window.

A link in a comment or an article to another Hacker News or Lobsters thread opens that thread in a window too. A link to a single HN comment opens the comment above its replies.

While a story's window is in front, the Story and Discussion menus in the menu bar hold its commands: pinning, Next story, sorting, collapsing every thread, jumping to the first new comment. Each window also remembers where you were in its article and discussion, so a reload, or Back to a story that Next took you past, finds your place again. Closing a window forgets it.

The whole arrangement lives in the address, so a bookmark or a shared link brings it back, and Back undoes the last change. Moving between Hacker News, Lobsters, their lists, Pinned and Find changes only the list, and leaves the windows open.

The list

The pin at the start of a row keeps the story in Pinned, and the cross at its end hides it. Pinned can be narrowed by words in the title, site or author, by source, and to the stories you haven't opened yet, and ordered by when you pinned them, by points or by comments; the filters are part of the address, so a filtered view can be bookmarked. Scroll past the end of the list to load more. Domain filters, in the View menu, hide every story from a site.

Browsing view

View > Windowed and View > Classic select the browsing view and save your default in this browser. Window view reuses a reader for each feed. Classic view opens stories and applets as pages. Open as a page and Open in a window are one-off actions that do not change your saved default. Direct page links always open as pages.

Applets

The Applets menu in the menu bar holds three tools, each a window of its own. Replies to me takes your Hacker News user name and lists the replies to your last thirty comments and stories, checking again every three minutes while it is open, and marking what is new since you last marked them read. Look up a user opens a profile on Hacker News or Lobsters, with their submissions and recent comments, as a commenter's name in any discussion does; the bar at the top of a profile looks up someone else in the same window, and Back returns to the one before. Who is hiring? filters the posts of HN's monthly hiring threads by the words you type.

They read only what the sites publish to everyone, so none of them asks for a login, and your user name stays in this browser.

Find

Find takes any link and lists every time it was submitted to Hacker News and Lobsters, so you can read each discussion of it.

About

YAVCHN never sees your Hacker News or Lobsters login. The discussion is fetched from each site's public API; to vote or reply, follow the link above the discussion, or the arrow beside a comment, to the source's own site. Pins, hidden stories, filters and layout are kept in this browser only.

Open source: github.com/paulmooreparks/yavchn. Built with PUDL.