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

Question

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.

downbad_ · Accepted Answer

Then log out.

vunderba · Answer

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...

d3Xt3r · Answer

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.

enragebait · Answer

You could simply run an alternative browser that is not logged in, and switch to the logged in browser for interaction worthy activities.

RetroTechie · Answer

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.

blowsand · Answer

Back of the line pal. You can have username hiding after we get dark mode.

jethronethro · Answer

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?