Orbit — Reddit Comments on YouTube & Webpages

A community-maintained fork of Comet by z0ccc, rebuilt with full source and updated branding.

Orbit replaces YouTube's comment section with the corresponding Reddit discussion, and lets you view Reddit comments for any webpage — all without leaving the page.

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Features

• YouTube integration — automatically replaces YouTube comments with Reddit posts for the current video
• Universal — click the extension icon on any webpage to see its Reddit discussion
• Multi-subreddit — tabs across all subreddits that have posted the URL
• Sort — switch between Best, Top, New, Old, and Controversial
• Voting — upvote and downvote posts and comments (Reddit login required)
• Reply — reply to posts and comments inline
• Save — save posts and comments
• Side panel — open as a Chrome side panel instead of a popup
• Dark mode — follows system preference, or set manually in options
• Icon indicator — extension icon is colour when Reddit posts exist, grey when none are found

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Installation & Setup

Option 1: Quick Install (Pre-built Release)

1. Download the latest extension archive (orbit-v1.1.0.zip) from the GitHub Releases.
2. Extract the downloaded zip file into a folder of your choice.
3. Open your Google Chrome or Chromium-based browser (Brave, Edge, Vivaldi, etc.) and navigate to chrome://extensions (or edge://extensions for Edge).
4. Enable Developer mode using the toggle switch in the top-right corner.
5. Click the Load unpacked button in the top-left corner.
6. Select the extracted folder (which contains the manifest.json file).

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Option 2: Build from Source

Prerequisites

• Node.js v16+
• npm

Install dependencies

npm install

Build

npm run build

The output bundle will be generated in dist/.

Development (watch mode)

npm run dev

Load built extension in Chrome

1. Go to chrome://extensions
2. Enable Developer mode (top right)
3. Click Load unpacked
4. Select the dist/ folder

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Project Structure

orbit-src/
├── src/
│   ├── components/
│   │   ├── App.tsx             # Main app — post/comment orchestration
│   │   ├── Comment.tsx         # Recursive comment + load-more
│   │   ├── CommentInfo.tsx     # Author, score, timestamp row
│   │   ├── Comments.tsx        # Top-level comment list
│   │   ├── Loading.tsx         # Loading / empty state container
│   │   ├── NoPostsFound.tsx    # "No posts found" with submit link
│   │   ├── PostActions.tsx     # Post title, voting, save, reply
│   │   ├── ReplyForm.tsx       # Inline reply form
│   │   ├── ReplyToggle.tsx     # reply / cancel toggle button
│   │   ├── SaveButton.tsx      # Save / unsave button
│   │   ├── Sort.tsx            # Sort order selector
│   │   ├── Subreddits.tsx      # Subreddit tab list
│   │   ├── VoteButton.tsx      # Upvote / downvote arrow
│   │   ├── YouTubeIcon.tsx     # Button to switch back to YouTube comments
│   │   └── YouTubeOverlay.tsx  # Reddit icon overlaid on YouTube page
│   ├── css/
│   │   └── global.css          # Comment body styles, scrollbar theming
│   ├── background.ts           # Service worker — API, icon, voting
│   ├── contentScript.tsx       # YouTube injection entry point
│   ├── options.tsx             # Settings page
│   ├── popup.tsx               # Popup entry point
│   ├── sidePanel.tsx           # Side panel entry point
│   ├── theme.ts                # Theme-UI theme (light + dark)
│   ├── types.ts                # Reddit API TypeScript types
│   └── utils.ts                # timeAgo, formatScore, fetchComments, show/hide helpers
├── assets/
│   └── icon_source.png         # Full-resolution source icon (512×512)
├── icons/
│   ├── icon48.png              # Colour icon (active state)
│   ├── icon128.png             # Colour icon (store listing)
│   └── iconGrey48.png          # Grey icon (no posts found)
├── public/
│   ├── popup.html
│   ├── sidePanel.html
│   └── options.html
├── _locales/                   # i18n message strings (54 locales)
├── manifest.json               # Chrome Extension Manifest V3
├── webpack.config.js
├── tsconfig.json
├── .babelrc
└── package.json

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Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
UI framework	React 17
Styling	Theme UI
Language	TypeScript
Bundler	Webpack 5
Transpiler	Babel
Extension API	Chrome Manifest V3

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Settings

Open the extension options page to configure:

Setting	Description
Theme	Light / Dark / System default
Default sort	Best / Top / New / Old / Controversial
YouTube default	Show YouTube comments instead of Reddit by default
Hide posts with 0 comments	Filters out dead threads
Disable icon badge check	Skips the API call on every navigation (faster)
Open in side panel by default	Opens side panel instead of popup on icon click

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How It Works

1. Content script — injected on youtube.com/watch*. Mounts the React app underneath the native comment section and a Reddit icon overlay above it.
2. Background worker — handles all cross-origin fetch calls (Reddit API), voting, replying, saving, and icon badge updates.
3. Popup / Side panel — query the active tab's URL, send it to the background worker, and render the same React app.

Page (YouTube)          Background Worker          Reddit API
      │                        │                        │
      │──commentsUrl msg──────▶│                        │
      │                        │──fetch comments───────▶│
      │                        │◀──JSON─────────────────│
      │◀──children array───────│                        │
      │                        │                        │
      │──url msg───────────────▶│                       │
      │                        │──search + submit──────▶│
      │                        │◀──posts JSON───────────│
      │◀──{ posts, modhash }───│                        │

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Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md for details on versions and release notes.

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License

MIT — see LICENSE

Based on Comet by z0ccc.