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Comment by asdkhadsj | Hacker News Reader

Agreed. This article is frustrating because, while yes I do in general like black text on white background, I definitely do not when the background emits hot white light into my eyes.

Strangely, the same can be true for plain old fashioned paper. The other day I was outside and had to look at a paper. Plain, white printed paper with black text. The bright hot sun reflected off of the paper and I couldn't see anything. A darker shaded advertisement however was easy to read.

So it's all relative. In my case I just prefer not to feel bright light blinding me, so I spend most of my time in dark mode editors/etc. My biggest complaint is that websites don't let me choose. I really wish OSs would start enforcing full dark or light modes as an accessibility feature. As I wright this, my HN screen is quite bright. I frequently flip between my dark editor and my bright Slack work screen. Those bright flips kill me.

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A lot of properly old fashioned paper is a very long way from white, and much more friendly for reading in the sun. Brilliant white bleached paper in even paperbacks seems quite recent, requiring use of sunglasses. Most of the books I remember from 70s and 80s - and I still have many - were much lower contrast, even in expensive hardbacks or heavy glossy art papers.

On desktop I prefer black on white, on phone white on black - but I would generally prefer tuning both down to lower contrast than either OS or websites want to let me. On my laptop I have the darkreader addon that lets me turn contrast down. My phone gets to stick in inverted accessibility mode as a part measure that is the nearest I can get. :( I've never yet had a smartphone that let me set display as I'd like - either on Android or Apple.

In Apple iBooks you might like the sepia paper option.

Has book paper actually tended more white recently than in the past? I have a lot of older paperbacks that are quite yellow these days, but I always assumed they started out that same brilliant white and yellowed over the years to their current state. Interesting to hear that they might have started out more yellow in the first place!

Paperbacks have traditionally been published on unbleached, cheaper paper. That's where the term "pulp" fiction comes from. It starts as tan and yellows over time.

But broadly yes, until the advent of chemical bleaching in the 19th century basically all paper products were a light tan. Ditto for animal hide writing media

Like ajross mentions the cheapest paperbacks started out quite tan or greyish, had quite a rough texture, then faded to even more yellow quite quickly.

The nicer hardbacks and art stock were often more a milky or creamy white, occasionally a more neutral hint of grey. Definitely much whiter than paperbacks, but I think most would be a few steps from the hard brilliant white most often seen now.

Have you tried turning down the brightness on your screen? If it's blinding you you've probably got it set way too high.

Yup. Though I still prefer dark mode.

But you touch on something that makes this worse; I prefer a brighter screen when in dark mode, and a darker screen when in light mode. Again, a relative thing. This is why I want consistency, above all else.

I think you hit the nail on the head. I prefer the look of dark mode, but because many UI elements don't support it, I stick to light mode across the board and lower brightness. There is no brightness level that is appropriate for a random mix of bright and dark mode, and trying to find one is worse than going all in on either.

Download Dark Reader. It's a god send for me. It's a browser plugin that turns everything into a dark pallet and doesn't look like hot garbage.

Check DarkReader add-on for your browser. It can force dark mode on any website.

> I really wish OSs would start enforcing full dark or light modes as an accessibility feature

Windows has had high contrast modes which do exactly this for decades. It permeates even web pages, though is no perfect there because--surprise!--few companies test with it.

There are browser extensions like Stylus which allow you to force dark mode on websites

On Firefox you can use the Dark background Light Text addon to tweak colors and contrast to Tour liking, i use it sich solarized.

the article tries to use scientific findings to promote preference. the facts stated are not to be denied, but the fact forgotten is that a lot of this kind of thing is personal experience and thus personal preference. which science can say nothing about.

for websites I can't recommend the browser add on stylus enough.

Slack not having a dark mode is also a thing I don't understand.

I feel like this is worth mentioning.

https://robertheaton.com/2018/07/02/stylish-browser-extensio...

If I go looking for an extension called "Stylish", will I find the original? Is it trustworthy?

AFAIK, you should use Stylus (opensource clone) instead of Stylish (history-stealing original), like mentioned in GP.

Oh. The names are close so I accidentally conflated the two. Thanks!

There is a dark mode setting on the Android app. I'm looking at it right now.

Otherwise, you can customize the color profile to your liking.

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