alt Hacker NewsWeb apps weren't so easy to make back then, so standalone apps were the norm. Shortly before 2009 a lot of the web apps were Java or Adobe Flash, and 2009 was part of the transition period where platforms were at war with that stuff but open-web alternatives weren't mature yet.
Yeah I know I was there -- also today's wasteful "open-web alternatives" wouldn't fly anyway, because I recall even during the XP era having min-specs of, like, 800mhz/512mb