Ask HN: Please give us an option to hide our username in the upper right corner

I'm often around others (bus, work, standing in line on my phone) and I don't want people to know my HN username. Many sites display the username in the upper right corner and it seems it's a privacy issue. Can we have an option to turn it off or just remove it completely?

In general I wish it would become a trend to stop displaying usernames at the to of sites. Reddit for example does this and I wish they didn't.

3 points | by swingandamiss 5 hours ago

7 comments

  • vunderba 4 hours ago
    Assuming you can run Tampermonkey, you can use my script which I've adapted to hide both the score and the username. It’s a script I personally use because I don’t like seeing my score since it just feels like a silly number, and I’d rather focus on the content than on whether my "number" goes up or down.

    If you install this script in the Tampermonkey extension for Firefox/Chrome, it will automatically hide your username and your score on all HN pages.

    https://gist.github.com/scpedicini/43f95d5e00af49110c41754ea...

    [-]
    • swingandamiss 4 hours ago
      Thanks. This is very useful. I'm surprised at push back I always get on this topic so it's nice to see I'm not the only one. I thought tech people were concerned about privacy, but I guess not? I know discord and a few other apps offer a "streamer mode" that hides the username so you don't broadcast it to your audience if you stream, I wish more apps and sites adopted that feature.
  • blowsand 2 hours ago
    Back of the line pal. You can have username hiding after we get dark mode.
  • d3Xt3r 4 hours ago
    Isn't it a bigger issue that they can even see your screen in the first place? Like what if you have to type a password or PIN into some app/website, or some other personal info?

    So I'd recommend a different approach, like getting a privacy screen guard so the screen can only be viewed from a limited angle. Or get a pair of AR/XR glasses so only you can see the content and you can keep your device's screen off.

    [-]
    • swingandamiss 4 hours ago
      I rarely type my password or PIN. And if I did, I'd make sure to hide my screen. But I frequently casually read HN, reddit, and other sites casually and in public places. It would be nice if my username wasn't so visible to others.
      [-]
      • al_borland 2 hours ago
        A co-worker of mine ran into issues of people trying to read his screen while traveling, and he was doing stuff for work. He ended up getting a screen protector with a privacy filter, so people couldn’t read it off axis. It seemed pretty effective.

        Nearly every website puts the username in the top corner. A screen protector seems more pragmatic than trying to petition every website to change well established conventions that millions (or billions) of users are already familiar with.

  • RetroTechie 2 hours ago
    Or an option to move username to the bottom of the page?

    That way you'd have to scroll to the very bottom before it appears.

    [-]
    • al_borland 2 hours ago
      A slight scroll on the page hides it as-is. The header isn’t sticky.
  • enragebait 3 hours ago
    You could simply run an alternative browser that is not logged in, and switch to the logged in browser for interaction worthy activities.
  • jethronethro 1 hour ago
    Good luck with this. Dark mode on this site will happen long before you get this option. And how long have HN users been waiting for dark mode?
  • downbad_ 5 hours ago
    Then log out.
    [-]
    • swingandamiss 4 hours ago
      Then I can't vote up/down, hide, or flag posts and logged out users will get cached pages.
      [-]