HACK for Hacker News YC Reader

HACK for Hacker News YC Reader

Best Hacker News app for tech

1.6K ratings
197 reviews
Free
In-App Purchases

Details

  • Released
  • Updated
  • May 26, 2019
  • September 24, 2026

Features

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About

This app offers a beautiful and intuitive way to read tech, startup, and STEM news from Hacker News. It provides advanced features like push notifications, threaded comments, and powerful search, with extensive customization options for a personalized reading experience.

✓Ad-free and subscription-free reading
✓Push notifications for replies
✓Nested threaded comments with collapse
✓Swipe to upvote and favorite
✓Submit new posts and drafts
✓Powerful Algolia-powered search
✓Customizable themes, fonts, and layout
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What's New in HACK for Hacker News YC Reader

183

September 24, 2026

- Updated to the latest iOS 27 SDK. Fixed bugs where the "Open in HACK" safari extension, URL scheme, and app icon shortcut weren't working. - This update hides the "time" icon on the story list. This helps reduce text wrapping and thus allows more stories to be shown. There are two new settings to toggle this behavior for stories and comments. - When full screen swiping, the app will now try to prevent accidental swiping to upvote on a story due to conflicting gestures. - Added a new "See Blocked Posts" option to menu. Useful if you have the "Reduce AI posts" setting on. - Updated the UI for the pagination button to match with rest of the app. Previous update added a setting to disable infite scroll aka auto-paginate to load more content. When disabled, shows a "Load more" button when scrolled near the bottom. Reduces addictive doomscrolling behaviors.) - Previous update also added another highly requested setting: "Reduce AI posts". This is OFF by default. When ON, it uses a regex to block any post titles matching a big list of AI related keywords. Fixed a typo in this setting name. - HACK is supported on Mac, iPhone, iPad. I am a small indie developer and need your help keep the lights on. I offer an ad and analytics free and beautiful app for the absolute best experience for my users. I need to run my own server for caching high quality favicons shown in the app plus for push notifications for replies to hacker news posts. If you can afford it, please support me by purchasing the one-time-only in-app-purchase or giving me a tip. No subscriptions. You can also leave a review on the App Store as that really helps me get the word out. Thank you for choosing HACK and supporting me. If you have a programming job or have feedback, contact me at: pran@pranapps.com

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Subscriptions & In-App Purchases

$14.99

Hack Premium

Unlock dark theme, font change, tint color

User reviews

Easy

Simple et efficace

Fantastic

Does everything you could want from a HN reader and is continuously maintained. Fast, customizable and no subscription! Highly recommended

Response from developer

Thank you!!

Awesome app

This is the best HN app I’ve found. The developer is super responsive, the app is very well designed, and even the non-premium app is very full featured. I of course recommend going premium to support amazing people like Pran!

you will not regret buying this app!

Disclaimer: I do not know this developer, I have never been in his country, which is far away from mine.

I can say the following:
(1) this is a very useful app, if you do not consider your MacBookPro or whatever computer you have, so kind of wondorous toy bursting with surprises; in other words, if you know really nothing of programming, this is **not** for you. Otherwise, **very much so!**

(2) the developer uses a business plan assuming general decency, both from the side of the developer community, and the user community; in the case of the present application, we are talking anyway of the intersection of the above two community.
Decency cannot be assumed these days lightly, so exercising this (this time as a user), is a sane way to imagine other alternatives for the future, than always the worst.

(consider the disclaimer above)
Please, do support this developer, for our own common sake.
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Awesome app

This is the best HN app I’ve found. The developer is super responsive, the app is very well designed, and even the non-premium app is very full featured. I of course recommend going premium to support amazing people like Pran!

Developer apps

FAQ

What is HACK for Hacker News YC Reader?

HACK for Hacker News YC Reader is an application designed to provide a beautiful and user-friendly interface for consuming content from YC's Hacker News. It focuses on delivering the latest tech, startup, and STEM news with advanced features and customization options.

What are the key features of this Hacker News app?

Key features include an ad-free and subscription-free experience, push notifications for comment replies, nested threaded comments that can be collapsed, the ability to swipe to upvote and favorite stories, and the option to submit new posts. It also offers powerful search capabilities powered by the Algolia API and extensive customization for themes, fonts, and layout.

Is this app free to use?

Yes, the application is free to use and does not have any ads or subscriptions. This allows users to enjoy all the features without any cost or interruptions.

What devices is HACK for Hacker News YC Reader compatible with?

The app is supported on iPhone, iPad, and Mac devices. It also offers features like split view support on iPads, making it versatile for multitasking and different screen sizes.

How can I customize the reading experience?

Users can extensively customize their reading experience through various options. This includes selecting from different dark mode themes (pure black and gray), a low contrast text mode, numerous color choices with a color picker, a variety of app icons, font choices, and the ability to adjust font sizes and padding for a personalized layout.