The internet's commentary track
Backchannel
- The internet's commentary track: Avoid the two-tab-tango and conveniently read the community's comments in-context.
- Never miss a thread: Every page you land on gets checked against the sources you've picked, so you find out a discussion exists without going hunting for one.
- What the internet is saying, in one thread: Every source you've switched on, merged into a single conversation, each comment quietly noting where it came from. Pick them with a checkbox.
- See what they're talking about: Quotes in the comments get matched back to the article and lit as annotations in articles. Click a highlight to filter the thread to the people discussing that passage.
- Read, then join in: Vote, reply, and even submit on supported sources. It acts in a popup on the source's own site, using the session you already have there. The script never sees your password.
- Take notes across the web: Add notes to any page or PDF you visit, allowing you to have your own personal commentary track. All stored locally.
- New front page of the internet: Blend together all of your added sources to create a custom front page to find new articles to read.
- Quality of life: Indent guides, OP marking, and new comment highlighting.
- Yours to adjust: Button shape and size, sidebar width, theme, which annotation layers show, and a per-site off switch. It's one file with no build step, so if the settings don't cover it, the source is right there.
Install
- Install a userscript plugin:
Usage
- Browse the web as usual. If a thread exists for that page the (BC) button lights up, letting you know people are discussing this site.
- You can visit backchnnl.app once you have the script installed to have a customizable front page you can bookmark.
- You can directly upload to Hacker News and Reddit using the ↑ button.
FAQ
Where did HNewhere go?
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.
What exactly is the script doing with my information?
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.
- Hacker News talks to the HN API, Algolia search, and news.ycombinator.com, with
- Reddit sends the pages you visit to reddit.com, and if you're
- Bluesky sends the pages you visit to Constellation, an independent index of
- Lobsters sends only the domain of each page you visit to lobste.rs, to find that domain's submissions. Signed in or out, the request
- Wikipedia sends the pages you visit to Wikipedia's API, to find the Talk and
- Mastodon sends only the domain of each page you visit to Tootfinder, an opt-in
- Lemmy sends the pages you visit to lemmy.world, a large instance whose
- Hypothes.is sends the pages you visit to its API, to find the public
Webmail, banking, auth flows, and cloud consoles are excluded outright.
Full detail, including a host-by-host table, in SECURITY.md.
When I enable annotations, I see faintly highlighted text that isn't directly quoted
When you enable annotations, the script generates a heat map of which content in the article the discussions are focusing on. So even if a piece of text isn't directly quoted by a comment, it may receive the highlighter effect. If it's distracting, you can disable showing annotations when the sidebar is closed by making sure Show when sidebar closed is not enabled.
How can I contribute?
Bug reports and pull requests are welcome. Please report anything security-sensitive privately via SECURITY.md. Backchannel is a single file with no
build step or dependencies: edit HNewhere.user.js, load it in your userscript
manager, and what you see is what users install. Release history is in
CHANGELOG.md.
What's the license on this bad boy?
MIT