HN Explorer

Ask HN: How do you find and consume content online?

6 points by sharma-arjun ↗ HN
I don't actively use social media (Reddit, X or Bluesky), but I'm wondering if it's even possible to discover new content through any other source. The best I've been able to do is rely on HN links and substack recommendations, but I feel like I'm missing out on a lot of the independent web.

I've also been looking for a way to aggregate all of these sources since Omnivore shut down - does anyone have any recommendations on a feed reader that works across platforms and also works as a web clipper?

8 comments

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theLegionWithin
google news feed, this website, wikipedia mainly. I stay away from social media, it's toxic (though the argument could be made that any news forum that permits comments is technically "social" media).
austin-cheney
Just search engines, traditional journalism, and hacker news.

I am not looking for content until I have something I am specifically looking for, typically to answer a programming or Linux question.

gregjor
Do you mean browse, search, and read? "Consume content" sounds like training an LLM or loading a database.

Besides HN I look at a couple of news site, AL Daily, subscribe to some newsletters, follow links, watch YouTube. No social media or Reddit.

Unlikely you miss out on much of real importance.

sharma-arjun
Yeah, you put it better than I did - I'm not secretly raining an LLM lol.

I'm not really interested in changing my information diet to help me follow the news, but I feel like I'm missing out on the high-quality and original writing that I'm sure must exist _somewhere_ in much larger quantities than I can find through my current sources, and that there must be a way to easily aggregate them all so that I don't miss out on the sources that publish less frequently.

chunkles
Hacker News or lobste.rs is my primary site for new content. But I've added blogs I've found particularly well written or informative to my feed reader (currently commafeed, formerly freshrss).

If you're looking for a way to browse the "independent" web there are a few projects out there like Kagi Small Web which curate sites for you. https://blog.kagi.com/small-web

theendisney4
Its dead now but i one time (by hand) build an opml with feeds from pressreleases from the fortune 500. It seemed stupid but turns out no one is looking to crank out shitty pressreleases just for attention. Something has to be noteworthy to the company which turns out to be boring less than 90% of the time. At the very least 99% talks about something that was very expensive.
eevmanu
Whenever I explore content on different platforms (Hacker News via Algolia, X, Discord, etc.), I always check if the source supports search operators. If it does, I use them to filter out noise and discover interesting or relevant content tailored to my preferences. For platforms without built-in search functionality, I rely on Google’s search operators to surface the content I’m looking for, as long as it’s accessible on the web.