Dark Reader – enable Dark Mode on Wikipedia and many other websites
darkreader.org
darkreader.org
I've tried most dark mode extensions for Firefox and Chrome and uninstalled every one after 15 minutes because they all have some common edge cases I don't like.
https://robertheaton.com/2018/07/02/stylish-browser-extensio... https://robertheaton.com/2018/08/16/stylish-is-back-and-you-... https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1472948
If there's an exact opposite version of this extension, I'd love to see it. I've even tried looking quite recently, but any search for terms like dark/light theme tend to throw up nothing but results for making things dark, not light.
Tranquility Reader helps a lot, but I'd like something that focused more on colours than style, leaving the page design mostly intact.
Of course it's also not perfect as it'll do that on all sites and qutebrowser isn't everyone's cup of tea.
javascript:(function(){var%20newSS,%20styles='%20{%20background:%20white%20!%20important;%20color:%20black%20!important%20}%20:link,%20:link%20%20{%20color:%20#0000EE%20!important%20}%20:visited,%20:visited%20*%20{%20color:%20#551A8B%20!important%20}';%20if(document.createStyleSheet)%20{%20document.createStyleSheet("javascript:'"+styles+"'");%20}%20else%20{%20newSS=document.createElement('link');%20newSS.rel='stylesheet';%20newSS.href='data:text/css,'+escape(styles);%20document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(newSS);%20}%20})();
Light text on a dark background makes the eye work harder and open wider, since it needs to absorb more light. When this happens, the light letters can bleed into the dark background and cause halation. Our eyes focus better when the iris is narrow.
Additionally, most people are born with some form of astigmatism, a misshaped cornea that blurs vision. For people that have the worst forms of astigmatism, light text on dark backgrounds aggravates the condition. When looking at a light display, the iris closes more, decreasing the effect of the deformed cornea. When using a dark display the iris opens to receive more light and the deformation of the cornea makes halation worse.
On the flip side, dark mode helps with floaters, tiny fibers or spots that appear in a person's vision. These are caused by changes to the fluid in the eye which cause shadows to be cast on the retina. Floaters distort vision in light mode. This condition tends to increase with age.
Also, people with light sensitivity might be better served by a dark background.
Both light and dark mode should be offered for accessibility reasons.
I have found that dark mode works best in low light, 100% contrast (both light and dark) can be harder to read with more eye strain, and reading large amounts of text in dark mode is harder.
I have several eye conditions, some genetic and some age related, which makes dark mode unusable. I tried using Dark Reader for evening web viewing, but the blurred vision and eye strain was too much. Flux has been a better experience for me.
I recommend having it off by default and turning it on when necessary. Occasionally you encounter a site that performs extremely poorly in Dark Reader, it’s just less annoying to opt-in than opt-out in those cases.
It works like a whitelist instead of the default "Not invert listed" option being a blacklist of sites to disable it for.
Regardless of whether you prefer to opt-in or opt-out, it's handy to have a keyboard shortcut set for toggling just the current site. You can do that in chrome://extensions/shortcuts
This extension has been a lifesaver for me already. I'm only overstating it a little bit; not instantly getting a headache on a bright white screen is a major relief.
It will remember one of 4 options (& disabled) for most sites. Choose any color for 6 options (foreground, bg, link, visited, active, selection). Save $$$ when you shop FOSS.
[0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dark-backgrou...
*##span,a,div,p,li:style(color: #000000 !important; background: #fff !important;) javascript:(function(){s=document.createElement('style');s.textContent='*{color: #5e5 !important; background: #000 !important;}';document.head.appendChild(s)})()
For wikipedia I use this theme specifically:
This year I switched to an LG CX 48 as my only display. This is a large OLED screen ("large" is an understatement -- it's the equivalent of a 4x4 grid of 24" 1080p monitors). Because it's OLED, there's some minor risk of burn-in. As one of my measures for mitigating that risk, I use Dark Reader with the contrast turned up. This also happens to look really cool on an OLED with its perfect blacks. There are a few sites that it does a poor job with, and for those I just have it disabled.
There are very very sites which get triggered by Dark Reader, but Red Hat sites are one of them.
Sadly this extension has a slight negative impact on loading performance, but I don't mind. It's otherwise great and makes reading much easier.
I got this message when I tried to add this extension, everybody comfortable with this?
The source is however available so you could inspect it for yourself and install from source:
Actually I believe the default mode analyzes the page contents in an attempt to provide a better end result.
It doesn't collect anything, is verified/checked by Mozilla
$4.99 for Apple users.
That is why the the Web Extensions update on Safari 14 are useless. It is not porting extensions that is difficult, it is dev dont want to sign up to a $99 / yr account just to publish their browser's extension
I will say, however, that NYT looked quite aesthetic in dark mode.
Contra: every once in while causes tabs to crash and my laptop battery to deplete. Firefox for iOS offers Night mode, which, except for still-white images, works more stable.
Is Dark Reader better? Why?
I love this extension on my workstation, but it makes me so sad the place I best need to be able to spread my user agency & improve my limited environment- mobile- is the place where browser makers offer me no control.
Dark Reader forever!