There was some people talking about this issue in the support forums and their response was to stick with v2 until they sort out the issues. They recently made

There was some people talking about this issue in the support forums and their response was to stick with v2 until they sort out the issues. They recently made a change with the node sdk recently so you don't need the apiKey for public access. Not sure about the web version, You would probably have to use the Browserify or something. https://firebase.googleblog.com/2016/07/firebase-react-native.html https://firebase.googleblog.com/2016/07/firebase-react-nativ... That said, If I were you, I would stick with V2 sdk since I don't think hacker news has actually updated yet. An easier way is to just use the rest apis, That is still clearly working. https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/8863.json https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/8863.json