FPN Reader by FPN Reader

FPN Reader is an unofficial extension for readers of The Fountain Pen Network
(fountainpennetwork.com). It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the site.

THE PROBLEM

FPN runs on a server with a request limiter: roughly 125 requests, then HTTP 429
until the client goes quiet for about a minute — and it counts every request,
including CSS, images and scripts, not just pages. A single thread view costs
about 71 requests on a cold cache. That is a 429 after fewer than two threads.
On top of that, the site's chatbox plugin polls for messages every 10 seconds
from any FPN tab left open, logged in or not — 360 requests an hour against a
budget of 125.

WHAT THIS DOES

• Renders threads, forum listings, the forum index and the Activity stream
  itself, from one fetch per page instead of ~71. Clicking between threads
  never triggers a full page load.
• Blocks the chatbox poll outright. This works even with the reader turned off,
  and on its own is most of the benefit.
• Governs the request budget, so the extension backs off before the server ever
  returns a 429. A meter in the reader strip and in the toolbar popup shows
  spent/cap, remaining, and a countdown while the budget is resting. During a
  cooldown, cached content stays browsable and new clicks queue up in order.
• Lets you reply and quote using the forum's own editor, so @mentions,
  emoticons, formatting, font size and colour all behave exactly as they do on
  the site. Drafts are saved locally as you type, and if anything about the
  form looks unfamiliar the extension hands you the native reply form rather
  than risking what you wrote.
• Gives you a navigation bar — Browse, Activity, Gallery, new topic and search —
  so you can move around without dropping back to the native site, plus a
  per-post menu with copy link, open on FPN, and edit on your own posts.
• Watches for new posts on Activity and on the last page of a thread — every 3
  minutes, only while the tab is visible, and only for 15 minutes after your
  last interaction. New posts arrive behind a banner; nothing moves under you.
  A tab left open overnight costs nothing.
• Loads images and avatars inline. Avatars cost one request per person rather
  than per post and are kept once fetched. If you would rather spend the budget
  on pages than pictures, one switch in the popup turns automatic image loading
  off and gives you a per-post "load images" button showing the cost.
• Caches pages and images locally, partitioned per logged-in account, so
  re-reading costs nothing. The popup shows what is stored and clears it in one
  click.
• Optional ad and tracker blocking, shipped OFF.

WHAT IT LEAVES ALONE

Login, registration, the messenger, notifications, settings, your profile, the
moderator CP and the admin CP are handled entirely by the native site. The
reader does not intercept, fetch, prefetch or cache any of them. Every reader
view also has an "Original page" control that turns the reader off for that tab
and reloads the untouched native page, with a pill to switch back.

PRIVACY

The extension talks to www.fountainpennetwork.com and nowhere else. No
analytics, no telemetry, no remote configuration, no third-party API, no remote
code. It does not request the "cookies" permission and never reads
document.cookie. Everything it stores stays on your device. Full statement:
PRIVACY.md, included in the extension.

KNOWN LIMITATIONS IN 0.6.2

• Search results are not rendered yet; the search box navigates to the native
  page.
• Gallery is a normal page load, marked with an arrow so the cost is visible
  before you click.
• Posting works and falls back to the native reply form if anything looks
  unfamiliar, but logged-in behaviour is the least-tested part of the
  extension.