
Ask HN: The 'web' button is gone? - oefrha
There used to be a &#x27;web&#x27; button on each HN comments page, between &#x27;past&#x27; and &#x27;favorite&#x27; (looks like https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;IkXqk), which basically Googles the title for you. It&#x27;s useful for finding original&#x2F;alternative&#x2F;more reputable sources, and sometimes for bypassing paywalls, either through an alternative source or through Google&#x27;s cached copy. Sure you can just copy the title and Google it yourself, but as someone who often browses HN from an iPad I find it pretty handy.<p>It seems just gone now (I think I last used it within the past couple of days)? Wonder if I&#x27;m the only one who gives a damn about it. Would love to hear from dang or another mod about the rationale behind the removal, too. I thought to email the mods but decided to post an Ask HN on the off chance this resonates with people.
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nkurz
Dan posted about the change here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23728840](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23728840).

I suggested keeping 'past', and he brought it back -- although this might have
been as much for layout reasons as for any persuasiveness I had. Personally I
used 'past' much more frequently than 'web', but I'm sure he'd listen to
arguments for 'web' if there was a significant contingent who misses it. Write
him email if you don't get a response here.

~~~
Pick-A-Hill2019
Thanks for posting that link, I didn't spot it during my usual browsing on HN
so assumed it was some sort of A/B testing going on. If Dan says it's toast
then that's fine with me although even after reading 23728840 I'm still
unclear what prompted it being nuked nor in what way(s) it was causing
problems

~~~
oefrha
I've seen people complaining the web button doesn't work for bypassing
paywalls long before this, but that's likely because they're not aware of
Google's cached copy
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23768780](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23768780)).

Anyway, if you want it back you should probably send an email to
hn@ycombinator.com too. Two people emailing is better than one.

~~~
Pick-A-Hill2019
Perhaps, although given the large volume of emails the mods must get perhaps I
should explain what I used the 'Web' button for and why I found it useful.

1) When browsing I have 'Show Dead' on and after reading the front page of HN
I head over to the 'New' section and take a look at the submissions there.
Often there are articles in that section that are just direct copies of the
original article from a different site that have been posted just to drive
traffic to their (the submitters) own blog. Hitting 'Web' makes it easy to
spot those and where appropriate suggest linking to the original source either
via an e-mail to HN or more rarely in the comments.

2) Some of the submissions on the 'Newest' section are in a foreign language.
Hitting 'Web' allows me to either just skip it or hit the ‘Flag' button.

In these sorts of edge case instances knowing the source origin of the article
(if any) allows me to express a more nuanced opinion or to decide when and if
to flag a submission. Note - I don't (didn't?) use the Web button for any and
all submissions I read or comment on but with the ones that I did use it for
it allowed me to decide whether to engage, skip or flag with a single click.

I accept that the way I used the 'web' button seems to be different from the
way others used it and few people some to use it at all so I'm not too fussed
about it being removed.

I have great admiration and respect for the way the mods run HN so I'm not
gonna fire them an e-mail over this but perhaps others DO use the web button
and can chip in with their own feelings / use cases in a single place rather
than the mods having to deal with several e-mails. Also, leaving it here
allows Dan & co to link to this submission if/when it comes up in the future.

------
oefrha
Btw, is Wayback Machine down? I mean
[https://web.archive.org](https://web.archive.org) is up but I consistently
get 503 when trying to pull any page from it. Ended up finding an example of
the old layout on archive.is.

~~~
TheCycoONE
Wayback is working for me. Was able to pull up Hacker News from various dates.

~~~
oefrha
It was consistently returning 503 errors when I posted the comment, at least
for me; now it’s back to normal.

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gabrielsroka
The official home page is too small on mobile and too cluttered. I wrote my
own HN home page years ago using the API. Mine is about 130 lines of
JavaScript. And it includes a web button. Source is on GH.

I use 'web' to Google domains I don't recognize and I'm not sure if I should
trust. I assume Google will warn me at least some of the time if I'm going to
a dangerous site.

[https://gabrielsroka.github.io/hn.html](https://gabrielsroka.github.io/hn.html)

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zzo38computer
Well, you can use a user script to add back whatever links you want, I
suppose. I don't use that link, but would like chronological sort order for
everything; it can't be done on the client side so easily when there is
pagination involved.

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zmix
I didn't even know it existed. But now that I hear about it, I would like to
have it.

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Pick-A-Hill2019
I've used it and found it handy for all sorts of things too

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joezydeco
Seems like the paywall-bypass trick hasn't worked for a long time now.

