Best of 2025

The blog posts Hacker News loved most in 2025. 66 posts.

Life, Learning & Writing
17

Our Farewell from Google Play

Our project started in 2016 with the goal of offering alternatives to apps with basic functionality that demanded – back then at install time – many permissions they did not need. From our humble beginnings with Privacy Friendly Torchlight, our apps have always been available in the Google Play Store. Our current…

30

Matt Trout has died

"No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away,"(Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett) It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Shadowcat co-founder, Matt S. Trout. Matt started Shadowcat Systems with Mark Keating in 2005 after a few years of each of them working for other people's…