fix(comments): let clicks through the thread hitbox when avatars are hidden

[RaghavShubham]

Resolves #4291

What

With appearance > comments > hide author avatars enabled, the comment's like button and the "read more" expander stop responding to clicks.

Hiding #author-thumbnail collapses the 36px avatar column, but YouTube's .thread-hitbox is a direct child of ytd-comment-thread-renderer, absolutely positioned at left: 0 with width: 36px. Once the column collapses, the comment body slides under it and the hitbox intercepts the clicks.

The fix disables pointer events on that element under this feature only. The hitbox exists to make the avatar column clickable for the reply chain — that column is gone once the feature is on, so there is nothing left for it to cover.

html[it-hide-author-avatars='true'] ytd-comments ytd-comment-thread-renderer .thread-hitbox {
	pointer-events: none !important;
}

How it was verified

Measured on a real YouTube watch page by injecting this repo's existing rule verbatim (#author-thumbnail, #creator-thumbnail, #hearted-thumbnail { display: none !important }), then probing document.elementFromPoint() at the centre of the like button:

State	Element on top at the like button	Clickable
Avatars visible (baseline)	div.ytSpecTouchFeedbackShapeFill	yes
Avatars hidden — the bug	div.thread-hitbox	no
Avatars hidden + this fix	div.ytSpecTouchFeedbackShapeFill	yes
Avatars visible + this fix	div.ytSpecTouchFeedbackShapeFill	yes

The last row is the regression check: the rule is scoped to html[it-hide-author-avatars='true'], so default behaviour is untouched.

Geometry that explains it, from the same page: #author-thumbnail is x=16 w=36, #main starts at x=68. With the avatars rule applied #main moves to x=16 and the like button to x=8, while .thread-hitbox stays at x=16 w=36 — directly over it.

Notes

• Reported on Firefox; I verified on Chromium. The cause is layout rather than engine-specific, but a Firefox confirmation would be worth having.
• I checked this against the live DOM rather than with the extension loaded, by applying the extension's own CSS rule. That reproduces the same stacking, but it is not the same as a full end-to-end run with the extension installed.
• Trade-off worth a maintainer's opinion: clicking the hitbox to collapse a reply chain no longer works while avatars are hidden. Hiding it outright (display: none) would be equivalent for clicks. If you'd rather keep the affordance, the alternative is re-positioning the hitbox instead of disabling it — happy to switch.

Note

AI model used — claude-opus-5, reasoning effort high. I read and verified every line before submitting.

[ImprovedTube2]

Thank you!