Or just use livestreamer software to watch just the bare stream in a media player of your choice, without all the web crap that comes with twitch interface.

And if you for some reason want to participate in chat, there is irc.twitch.tv, where you can simply join channel #streamname in IRC client of your choice, again without all the web crap, and without all the inane twitch emotes.

I've been doing that for a few years now, much more pleasant experience than their web interface.

I pop out the chat and put the video in theatre mode.

You can close the chat window if you want, but I'm normally watching things where the streamer is engaged with the chat and volume is fairly low.

Good streamers (shoutout to Grubby) will actually read the question they're answering out loud before they answer it. Means I don't have to wade through the insane chat myself, but I still get to experience both sides of the Q&A when he picks out something funny or interesting to respond to.

Yeah for the most part that works, but I'm also often itching to give my own feedback to the streamer, and that is difficult to do without having it open :D

I will say, in the circles I move in, many content creators are also running a discord along side twitch. Some will even invite people into their voice chat to talk with them on stream.

I much prefer using discord in those situations, but that may be partly due to the higher barrier to participation that using discord immediately entails.