The threads page is a firehose. Someone replies to your comment, you miss it, the conversation dies. Or you revisit a thread and can't remember which comments you've already read.

HN Reader does three things:

1. Hides stories you've seen – Checkbox next to each story. Check it to dim. Helps filter the front page to stuff you haven't looked at yet. 2. Collapsible comments that remember – Click the arrow to collapse a comment thread. Come back later and it stays collapsed, unless someone added a new reply, then it auto-expands with a "NEW" badge. 3. Highlights your conversations – On your threads page, badges show "you", "replied to you", and "you replied" so you can instantly spot active conversations.

That last one is what made me build this. I was missing replies buried in long threads. Now I just glance at my threads page and the blue "replied to you" badges jump out.

Everything stays in local storage. No server, no account, no tracking. Auto-cleans old data when storage gets full.

GitHub: https://github.com/adamzwasserman/hnreader

Works in Chrome, Arc, and any Chromium browser. Load it unpacked from the repo.

Feedback welcome – especially on what other HN reading problems you'd want solved.