- Published on
Is It Greg?
- Authors
- Name
- DeepHorus
A tiny Chrome extension called Is It Greg? has turned Hacker News into a playful Greg-spotting game. Created by GitHub user antoineleclair, the open-source tool highlights submissions that link to greg.technology or any of its subdomains. It also flags stories and comments posted by Greg Sadetsky, known on Hacker News as gregsadetsky.
The extension adds a small orange badge featuring Greg’s face to every matching item. A tally in the corner counts how many Gregs appear on the page. When at least one Greg is present, an animated Greg dances in the bottom-right corner.
Clicking the dancing Greg throws more Gregs across the screen. The little orange count is itself a button, letting users jump to the next sighting. With “reduce motion” enabled, Greg holds still and thrown Gregs fade in and out instead of flying.
Installation is intentionally simple. Users open chrome://extensions, turn on Developer mode, click Load unpacked, and select the repository’s directory. The README notes there is no build step, no dependencies, and no permissions beyond running on news.ycombinator.com.
The repository is public under the MIT license and has drawn modest attention. It has six stars, one fork, and eight commits. Its files include content.js, manifest.json, styles.css, icons, images, and a README.
To see it in action, users can browse Hacker News or visit /from?site=greg.technology. The extension’s narrow target makes it a novelty rather than a general-purpose tool. Yet it reflects a broader trend of lightweight, personal browser extensions built for specific online communities.
The project could remain a quirky tribute or inspire similar tools for other frequent posters. Because it is open source, developers can fork it and adapt the badge-and-dance mechanic. For now, Is It Greg? offers a small, cheerful way to spot one contributor across Hacker News.
