Show HN: YCombinato – A domain-hacked "Hacker News" client

[gitgud]

Hi HN,

This is a little "HN Reader" experiment I made using a domain hack of "news.ycombinato.com" <- notice the "r" is missing.

Basically, I thought it would be cool to make a "clone" of the "Hacker News" URL so you can quickly navigate to "YCombinato" from any post on "news.ycombinator" by just dropping the r in the domain. The benefit is a few extra features like; sorting, searching etc...

Unfortunately I realized it's essentially a phishing attack :( according to the browser, which means there will probably be a warning message on most browsers... but it's still usable and hopefully people find it enjoyable.

There's so many "Hacker News" clients now that it's almost equivalent to the TODO app for web developers. This project does take it pretty far by replicating the URL, so if moderators are unhappy with it, please let me know

It's a static site using the [1] algolia API, but I tried hard to make it fast and snappy. It's fully [2] open-source and hosted on github too.

Anyway, thought I'd share it, let me know what you think!

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/api

[2] https://github.com/benwinding/ycombinato

[sach1]

YCombinato, pronounced like "Avia-to" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q9nQXdzNd0

[quickthrower2]

You say tomato I say ycombinato

[thala]

Erlich Bachman

[dimaor]

"according to the browser, which means there will probably be a warning message on most browsers"

if my browser automatically assumes missing an r in a domain name is phishing (without the domain being blacklisted somewhere) I am moving browsers.

[m3047]

Yah. What about "ycombinatorr" or "ycombinatoor" or "yombinator" or...

This stuff is very common. The easiest way to find it is to locate infrastructure associated with one homology (nameservers, or IP addresses of nameservers or hosting) and then see what other domains are on those servers / hosting, assuming you have access to a crowdsourced Passive DNS database.

(Crowdsourced in this case is important, and I draw a distinction because most commercial PDNS DBs are crowdsourced, and I offer free software which synthesizes PTR records from locally observed PDNS because it serves a different purpose.)

[notpushkin]

> Unfortunately I realized it's essentially a phishing attack :( according to the browser, which means there will probably be a warning message on most browsers... but it's still usable and hopefully people find it enjoyable.

No phishing warnings for me. Not sure if YC would be happy with it though :^)

[evanjrowley]

FWIW, Brave browser on Android 14 gave me a phishing warning.

Brave 1.59.124, Chromium 118.0.5993.117

Android 14; Build/UP1A.231005.007

[AnonHP]

I’m looking at this on a smartphone screen. The design and fonts are way nicer than HN (which is unimaginative and ugly in comparison). But the fonts on your site are also small and the link/buttons (for collapsing comments) are small and difficult to tap or click, just like on HN.

It would be great if you could build on this, make it more accessible and get it to work for replying, voting, flagging, etc. I like how the main comments are separated as cards.

With more third party efforts like this, maybe one day YC can be shamed into making HN look better and more accessible.

[replwoacause]

I understand this criticism but the counter argument I’ve seen many times before is that the brutal simplicity of the design is a feature many people here value. Especially where bandwidth is a concern. Not so much my opinion but I’ve seen it fervently defended.

[discordance]

I suspect you’re about to be contacted for trademark infringement.

[dimaor]

What trademark exactly? just curious...

what prevents me (legally) to purchase a domain, make it orange, and manually aggregate news in it?

Assuming the content is not scraped, and no icons / logos are copied, can there be legal actions followed and if so on what basis?

[jlizzle30]

I’ve wondered if a ‘follow’ feature would be useful on HN. It’d allow curating timelines of comments from interesting users.

[rich_sasha]

Seems like why not, but I guess the "typo squatted" domain is a bit creepy/questionable.

I use hckrnews.com as an alternative reader, I guess no shame in having a different domain. Especially since, fundamentally, YCombinator is presumably a regulated company, who must by law care about things like confusing names (what if you get hacked and someone uses the hacked domain to spoof YCombinator the business?). Hacker News is just an appendix.

[robwert]

Can there be a dark mode option?

[auggierose]

I like the font choice, looks cleaner than HN.

I think having a fixed width is problematic though. For example, because of that you probably do not have enough indentation for subcomments relative to their parents.

[lokesh1729]

Don’t think browsers report as a phishing attack but ycombinator may send domain trademark infringement.

Also, there are many alternative frontends, how does your project compare with them?

[ianai]

Good work but should probably be a redirect to the right domain. I’d give them the redirect and ask for a review of my resume or “networking“.

Could be pitched as a feature beta test site.

[quickthrower2]

Do us a solid and make it auto replace any paywalled links. I would love one of the readers.

One method is look for the alt link in the comments.

[gitgud]

This is a great idea, I wonder if there’s an easy way to do this?

[xrd]

FYI, someone should typo squat this typo-squatted-domain by removing one more letter:

Ycombin.at

The .at TLD isn't the cheapest but it allowed me to get basqui.at.

[Obscurity4340]

Or you could do the normal thing and PAY for the amazing experience that is HACK with the green computer chip logo

[Mandatum]

No issues. I suspect your browser is reporting enough “not a phishing” reports from users to remove the auto block.

[thala]

Collapse does not close all the comments in the thread but only that particular comment.

[lambdaba]

I like the subtle styling changes in comment threads, less so in the submission lists.

[KomoD]

I don't like this at all