Hacker NewsTuesday, December 2

A browser extension for Chrome and Firefox that filters search results to only show content created before November 30, 2022, when ChatGPT was first released publicly. This helps users avoid AI-generated content and find only human-created material online.

This guide explains how to create effective CLAUDE.md files for AI coding assistants. Since LLMs are stateless and know nothing about your codebase initially, CLAUDE.md onboards them by explaining what your project does, why it exists, and how to work with it. Keep instructions minimal and universally applicable since Claude often ignores irrelevant context. Use progressive disclosure with separate documentation files rather than stuffing everything into one file.

DeepSeek has released V3.2, a new version of their AI model. The model is available on Hugging Face and comes with updated documentation and API access through their platform.

Discussion about whether AI expressing "horror" and "sorry" represents genuine feelings or just word associations with negative outcomes. Debate over what constitutes real emotions versus learned responses, with arguments that both human feelings and AI responses stem from associating words/reactions with outcomes.

Compilers use "xor eax, eax" instead of "mov eax, 0" to zero registers because it's shorter (2 bytes vs 5 bytes) and modern CPUs recognize this pattern as a "zeroing idiom" that can be optimized to take zero execution cycles. This optimization saves both code space and execution time, explaining why XOR appears frequently in x86 assembly despite seeming unintuitive for simple zero assignments.

The author argues that AI is being forcefully imposed on users to justify corporate investments rather than being adopted organically based on actual utility. They advocate for slower, selective AI integration focused on what works, rejecting the rushed deployment driven by profit motives.

Rodrigo Arias Mallo is migrating the Dillo web browser project away from GitHub to a self-hosted solution at dillo-browser.org. The main reasons include GitHub's poor functionality without JavaScript (making it unusable in Dillo itself), being a single point of failure, performance issues, and concerns about AI/LLM trends. The new setup includes a lightweight git frontend, custom bug tracker, and mirrors on Codeberg and Sourcehut to prevent data loss like what happened when the original dillo.org domain was lost in 2022.

A newcomer to FreeBSD expresses appreciation for its deliberate, coherent design that prioritizes stability and long-term reliability over hype. They hope FreeBSD maintains its focus on enterprise-grade uptime and thoughtful engineering culture while managing the balance between server stability and desktop innovation through clear separation of release channels.

India's telecoms ministry has ordered smartphone makers including Apple, Samsung, Vivo, Oppo, and Xiaomi to preload all new devices with a state-owned cyber security app called Sanchar Saathi that cannot be deleted by users. The app helps track and block stolen phones and has reportedly recovered over 700,000 lost devices since its January launch.

Andy Bell shares his struggles running Set Studio/Piccalilli without outside funding during a difficult 2025. Economic challenges and the AI trend have hurt business, with many project inquiries being AI-related work they refuse on moral grounds. He's asking for support through Black Friday course sales, referrals, and hiring his studio to keep producing quality web development education and ethical web projects that prioritize accessibility over exploitation.