HN Focus Reader

Read any Hacker News comment subtree in a calmer, cleaner inline reader.

Hacker News comment threads are full of great writing, but the reading experience is rough when you want to follow one branch closely. HN Focus Reader lets you pick any comment and open a cleaner, quieter view of that comment and all of its replies, without the pipes, navigation links, and visual clutter of the default thread layout. Just hover a comment and click Read thread to enter Focus Mode. You get a compact bit of context above the selected comment, better typography, cleaner spacing, and simple controls for expanding or collapsing replies. It all happens on the original HN page, so you can return to the full thread whenever you want. HN Focus Reader is built for people who read Hacker News for the conversation, not the interface. It runs only on HN item pages, stores only your reader settings, and has no backend, popup, or analytics.