Modern for Hacker News vs. Modern Pro: What the $10 Upgrade Adds

Updated

The free version of Modern for Hacker News is a permanent, no-cost extension that redesigns Hacker News and adds customization; Modern Pro is an optional one-time $10 upgrade that layers on personal productivity features. If you only want a cleaner HN interface, the free version is enough. If you want to save stories, track replies, and highlight text, Pro is the version that does it.

What the free version covers

Modern for Hacker News is a free extension for Google Chrome, Firefox, and Edge. Once installed, it applies the new look and features to existing HN pages automatically — you don't change how you browse, the extension builds on the interface already there. The site states all current Hacker News features are supported.

The free tier is built around the redesign and customization:

Category What you get
Themes Light, classic HN, slate, dark, black
Fonts Sans or serif, adjustable font size
Styles Column width, line height, justified text
History Jump back to stories you've previously viewed
Comments Inline reply plus other improvements
Index List or table view, customizable columns
Profiles New design with tabs, clickable links
Accounts All HN account features supported

Two practical notes: you can switch back to the old design with one click, and the extension only works on desktop or laptop computers — the site asks you to return on a desktop or laptop to use it.

What Modern Pro adds

Modern Pro is an optional $10 upgrade. The site notes the free version "will always be free," so Pro is additive rather than a replacement. Pro unlocks six features:

  • Bookmarks — save favorite stories, comments, highlights, and users. No account needed; stored privately in the browser, with backup and restore to a JSON file.
  • New Replies — a badge next to stories with new replies since your last visit, plus orange arrows to navigate new comments within a story.
  • Highlighter — select any text and click the bookmark icon to create a highlight, saved to your bookmarks for easy reading.
  • User Popup — hover over a username to see account age, karma, and a scrollable about section; save users to bookmarks from the same popup.
  • Selection Popup — select text to get a menu for highlighting, replying with a quote, copying to clipboard, text-to-speech, or searching on HN.
  • Control Pad — described as an "intelli..." feature in the available page text; the excerpt cuts off, so treat the full scope as unconfirmed here.

Which one fits you

Choose the free version if your goal is a modern-looking HN with theme, font, and layout control, and you're fine using HN's own account features for everything else.

Choose Pro if you want HN to remember things for you — bookmarked stories and comments, a badge when a thread you follow gets new replies, and highlights you can revisit. The bookmark system is local to your browser and exportable as JSON, so it doesn't require a Modern account or a cloud login.

One thing to weigh: Pro's value is concentrated in bookmarking and reply-tracking. If you don't save posts or revisit threads, those features won't do much for you, and the free redesign already covers the visual upgrade.

Installation and the Edge quirk

The extension installs from the Chrome Web Store, Firefox add-ons, or Edge add-ons depending on your browser. On Microsoft Edge, the site gives a three-step path because the extension lives in the Chrome Web Store:

  1. Click "Add to Edge" to open the Chrome Web Store, then click "Allow extensions from other stores."
  2. Click "Allow" when prompted.
  3. Click "Add to Chrome" to install.

If you're on Chrome or Firefox, the corresponding "Add to Chrome" or "Add to Firefox" button installs it directly.