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Use The Reddit Enhancement Suite To Add Functionality To Browsing Reddit

Just last week on Reddit, somebody posted a thread asking the Admins to tweak the interface so that the button to collapse nested comments all lined up and was in a consistent place. Impressively, the change was made the next day to the satisfaction/dissatisfaction of many.

Instead of getting Admins to change the interface, a lot can be done client-side to improve your Reddit experience. If you’re part of the Reddit community, then you might already know about the Reddit Enhancement Suite. If not, then perhaps I’ll be able to convince you to try it out here. RES, an addon for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Opera, offers a whole lot of customization when browsing Reddit to improve the interface or alter the behavior to your preferences. It works based on modules, so you can enable or disable related feature sets with a single click. There is a link to RES in the top-right corner of your browser when visiting Reddit where you can choose which modules to enable and configure any options those enabled modules have.

RES offers far too many enhancements to list but offers instant improvements and at the very least, greater customization options.

To highlight some of the more prevalent features:

A button in the top-right, Night & Day, allows you to toggle white or black background so Reddit isn’t blinding late at night.

Nested comments are put in color-defined divs so they are easier to follow and plenty of other interface tweaks.

You can hide your name while you’re logged in so others can’t see your username over your shoulder. This is customizable and defaults to ~anonymous~.

An  easily accessible account switcher.

You can filter posts based on keywords (like block all posts with the word ‘cat’).

Comment preview and format tools help you write a comment and see what it would look like since Reddit has its own formatting rules.

RES is installed like any other browser addon. For some browsers it might ask for additional security permissions to run on various permutations of the Reddit site (http://reddit.com and https://reddit.com). It is available on Firefox (with GreaseMonkey), Chrome, Safari, and Opera from reddit.honestbleeps.com. You can find support or submit feature requests in the subreddit /r/Enhancement.