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Comment by smlavine | Hacker News Reader

I agree with this. Default, unconfigurable light mode has been around for a while, and infrastructure like the Dark Reader plugin is around to address this. There is no such thing for light mode, though.

In my opinion, light mode is better than dark mode in most situations. The only situation dark mode is better than light mode is when you're sitting in a dark room with your screen as your only light source, and most of the time that's not really a healthy situation to be in. Dark mode is a crutch. Turn on a light or go to sleep.

Light mode might be annoying to read in no-light environments, but dark mode is nigh impossible to read in high-light environments. Ever try to read a dark mode UI on your phone on a bright summer's day? Can't read a thing, even with brightness cranked all the way up.

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On my system, the dark reader plugin also has an option to force a light theme.

Actually, the browser has the ability to set a default background and foreground anyway, so this extension would be unnecessary if websites would behave properly and respect these defaults unless they really need to. We live in an unfortunate world where a “actually respect my preferences” extension is necessary, but since it is necessary, it should be noted that it covers both options. Overall the situation is pretty stupid but hey at least we’ve got workarounds, right?

Browsers shouldn't set a preferred colour scheme by default.

I think the prefers-color-scheme media query would be respected on more sites if by default it had the value "unset" or something, instead of defaulting to "light" or "dark".

I personally don't respect it on my sites for this reason. 99% of people visiting my sites won't actually have set this value themselves.

> Browsers shouldn't set a preferred colour scheme by default.

I mean, they really don't (the defaults are exactly what they have been since Mosaic left the scene). Unless the user tells them to do something else.

And at that point, it's my computer, and I told it to do something, why shouldn't it do that?

> 99% of people visiting my sites won't actually have set this value themselves.

It's inherited from their operating system settings. Dark theme is typically opt-in.

Actually, websites shouldn’t set a preferred color scheme by default.

> The only situation dark mode is better than light mode is when you're sitting in a dark room with your screen as your only light source, and most of the time that's not really a healthy situation to be in. Dark mode is a crutch. Turn on a light or go to sleep.

It's always been strange to me how many people without a medical reason for doing so want to sit in dark rooms like cave trolls, but there we are.

At least now operating systems all have switchable modes that get reported to the browser. The browser can/should adapt to whatever setting the OS reports.

But UI design is, with a few islands of rationality in history from people like Paul Fitts, mostly a cascade of poorly applied vibes and fads. First people say that contrast is bad, so then people don't use enough contrast. Then people say that brightness is bad, so people don't use enough brightness. Then people realize why contrast and brightness were important all along and the circle of life continues.

> It's always been strange to me how many people without a medical reason for doing so want to sit in dark rooms like cave trolls, but there we are.

As a millennial, I grew up with rooms being lit by 1-3 relatively dim lampshaded 40-60w incandescent bulbs at night. As a result that’s what feels comfortable and relaxing to me as an adult. Rooms at home being brightly lit at night feels grating and reminiscent of a grocery store or hospital or something.

> Rooms at home being brightly lit at night feels grating and reminiscent of a grocery store or hospital or something.

Look into getting warm white lights. For some reason cool white lights are super common while I do think most people at home would actually prefer warm white.

Things can be bright and cozy.

Oh yeah, I’m a big fan of warm lights and have been using them for a while. Still don’t like them bright at night. Lights that are indirect (e.g. under counter) I can deal with being considerably brighter but for your typical table/floor lamp, 60W incandescent equivalent is the upper limit. I don’t like ceiling pot lights at all unless the bulb can be dimmed.

Glare from lights is the worst. I really loathe the recent trend of bare bulbs and lampshades that don't shade.

> I don’t like ceiling pot lights at all

Why not? Is it not better for lights to be overhead and not directly in your field of view?

As a sibling comment expresses, it’s their unshaded nature. The light is too direct/harsh and can introduce glare. They can also wind up in peripheral vision easily, particularly when sitting down and looking up at someone standing or at an object high on the wall.

Indirect/shaded lamps that diffuse the light over a larger area and reduce its intensity are preferable.

> It's always been strange to me how many people without a medical reason for doing so want to sit in dark rooms like cave trolls, but there we are.

Because screens are not bright enough to use outside or in well-lit environments.

If E-ink or similar technology manages to get a bit better refresh rates, it's going to change building architecture in the entire industrialized world.

I'll grant you outside, because the power of the sun is immense, but they're definitely bright enough to use in any well-lit indoor environment. Do you mean if the lights are behind your head instead of overhead? That's either bad lighting or bad ergonomics, and I'm sorry if you must suffer through that. That sucks.

An ergonomic screen arrangement, with the display placed such that you're not looking downward at it, should make it basically impossible for an overhead indoor light to interfere with your view.

> If E-ink or similar technology manages to get a bit better refresh rates, it's going to change building architecture in the entire industrialized world.

Fingers crossed. I remember yearning for the breakout of transflective displays that never happened.

I don't think I phrased that right. What I mean is environments with a lot of natural light, for example from big windows. Or a café without walls to the outside, letting the sunlight in, but not right overhead. I guess this kind of architecture is not so common in colder countries, now that I think of it.

The sun is tyrannical where I live, so with current display technology, offices are indeed built somewhat like caves.

As someone that had cataracts, light mode was very hard to read. It was like looking directly into high beams. I used a dark reader plugins that was alright, but was not the same as a site designed to support dark mode.

Yes, and for someone with astigmatic halation, dark mode is very hard to read. Web sites should support both, and respect `:prefers-color-scheme`.

> * only situation dark mode is better than light mode is when you're sitting in a dark room with your screen as your only light source,*

Also maybe if you set your screen brightness inappropriately high.

Or if you are sensitive to light.

I feel kind of traumatized for years of forced light mode everywhere. It hurts my eyes.

In bright sun when outside, I use light mode. Allmost everywhere else, I won't. So please @everyone thinking like this, don't assume, what is best for me, because your taste is different.

Yeah, most people use their screens with brightness cranked up and then wonder why they have all sort of problems.

The trick is to set a low brightness, in my case it's a little below what you would call comfortable, but that's because you adapt to it in a sec and will be perceived as good.

If you can't set it too low on the monitor, set brightness to 0 and lower the contrast. If it's still too bright use also brightness/contrast controls in your GPU settings. It is also needed to adjust the settings during the day. But having a more controlled light in your room is a better option.

Once you start getting comments from others that they can't see shit on your screen then you've set the correct level :)

Another very often forgotten thing is to set up correct gamma correction! Yes that thing from CRTs is often needed on LCDs too! LCDs can produce quite big contrast which is unpleasant, for example I set mine to 1.3, fixed it nicely for me.

One approach to find a good value is to have antialiased text both in white-on-black and black-on-white and switching between these. Once the apparent thickness is the same then you've got the right value. Beware of ClearType settings though, you may need to do the test with a classic antialiasing instead.

The result is that you can comfortably use light mode in total dark room without any issues.

I don't really want to spend 5 minutes every time to open the 25 menus my screen uses to change the brightness.

Yeah monitor controls can be a problem. You can download an utility to set it from the computer, it's much more comfortable. I'm using one from my monitor vendor, but there are also generic ones.

Search for utilities that can set the monitor using DDC (Display Data Channel).

A difficulty is that the appropriate screen brightness varies with the content it's displaying. Going from a low-contrast dark site to a white background is especially jarring.

Or from text and diagrams (which often contain large single-color areas) to photos and videos. The default HN color scheme looks much brighter than the bright daylight photo I currently have as a desktop background.

With a properly set monitor and gamma setting there is no issue with switching between light and dark mode at all (even in a pitch black room at night). I use it regularly, I prefer light mode but I also use dark mode for stuff like terminals. So I switch a lot between these.

I have written another post about how to set the monitor: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42762770

Your proposal is to decrease the dynamic range of the display. This will certainly achieve the goal of making switching between light and dark backgrounds more comfortable, but makes it worse for viewing photographs or videos. It's also not ideal when doing any amount of design, as most viewers won't have their screens set up the same way.

Photographs and videos seems allright to me, maybe I'm just used to it. I like that the dark regions are visible (esp. when IPS LCDs have not that great blacks due to the backlight).

I always hated it on CRTs where photographs were too dark, had to use a really big gamma correction on them (2.5), I guess I've got used to it from these times because it was a necessity to be compatible with LCDs.

The photos and videos are more dull when compared to a reality, but consistent with other stuff on the screen. I have no problem doing color stuff for things like textures, website design etc. The relative comparison to other material is enough for me. I've been working with graphics designers with calibrated monitors and didn't get any complaints.

But I don't do anything that requires working with calibrated monitors, like printing. Though it's hard to tell if it would be an issue. You need to do test prints anyway. You have to use specific named colors (Pantone). Based on that you can just imagine how it would look, no need to have it precisely shown all the time.

I like Pure Black mode because the black pixels actually turn off on my screens, making it much more pleasant to look at. Even in broad daylight! I wish Pure Black mode was an option separate from Dark and Light mode, like it is on some Android apps. For now I get by by minimizing brightness in Dark Reader, but it is a bit clunky.

I never knew about the Dark Reader plugin. I just installed it and it makes HN, Slashdot and other sites much more readable for me. Thanks!

> Light mode might be annoying to read in no-light environments, but dark mode is nigh impossible to read in high-light environments.

Backlit screens are difficult to read in high-light environments regardless of whether you're reading black text on white or white text on black. I use white-on-black ("dark mode") on my e-ink Kindle to read outside all the time. And the same is true on our Daylight computer. White-on-black remains my preference in high-light environments.

I agree broadly but in London it starts to get dark about 3pm at the moment. In the winter, dark mode is a lifesaver.

Are you confusing the brightness setting on the display with "dark" and "light" mode? Because I always have the brightness on my monitors at max when the lights are on. I practically never change it.

As a software developer, who codes about 15 hours a day (day job and personal projects), I ditched "light mode" many years ago as it's too harsh on my eyes to be staring at a bright white screen that many hours a day. Dark mode is far easier to look at for long periods of time.

I have no trouble reading code in dark mode in a well lit room. If it were difficult to read, it wouldn't last 15 minutes for my needs. I don't code in "D4rK M0D3" in the dark, I'm not a l337 H4CK3r.

>Ever try to read a dark mode UI on your phone on a bright summer's day?

Phone in direct sunlight is one thing. That isn't the way most people use devices, that's a more rare use case than sitting at a desk 8 hours a day staring at a bright screen. There are also high-contrast modes for eyesight challenged people, which can be used effectively in bright sunlight too, but I'm not going to code that way for hours a day if I don't really need to. Phones and other devices also have adaptive brightness, so if you are in a dark room the phone's display brightness is going to be dimmer automatically, and I'm not really sure you know the difference between "dark mode" and "brightness turned down". So using a phone screen and high contrast required for using screens in direct bright sunlight is a poor example to support your argument. Maybe you also need to qualify all of your arguments with "on a mobile device in bright sunlight", because that isn't the main use case for "dark mode".

> I ditched "light mode" many years ago as it's too harsh on my eyes to be staring at a bright white screen that many hours a day. [...] I always have the brightness on my monitors at max when the lights are on.

If your screen at the brightest setting hurts your eyes, why would you use it like that?

I enjoy the full brightness of the display when it calls for it, when watching videos or video games, when the screen isn't 99% full-on white pixels. I also enjoy the crispness and contrast of white text on a dark background when the display brightness is at maximum. No, I do not enjoy using a display at low brightness, and I really don't like being blasted by full-on white background with dark text on it all day every day.

> The only situation dark mode is better than light mode is when you're sitting in a dark room with your screen as your only light source

It's really not that extreme. Dark mode is more comfortable as soon as it's dark outside (this time of year that starts between 3 and 4 pm) unless I'm flooding my entire room with enough light to replace the sunlight. I still have the lights on, but none of that light is as bright/white as an average white webpage. Even with screen brightness turned down and a blue light filter, an all-white webpage is usually just too much white.

> Light mode might be annoying to read in no-light environments, but dark mode is nigh impossible to read in high-light environments.

This is just completely opposite for me. Reading in dark mode is only uncomfortable if there's sunlight basically directly behind the screen, while light mode is only really comfortable in high-light environments.

Nah some of us need dark mode 24x7 and actually benefit from it even in broad daylight. Not fair to make this assertion and assume everyone is like you.

But thats what browser extensions and high contrast mode are for

Light/Dark modes at their extremes are both annoying. White on black or black on white are both to extreme. The best solution IMO are mid-level colors. I personally prefer the schemes with darker grey backgrounds and lighter grey (or other lighter color) foreground, but the opposite isn't bad either. What are bad is that the default light modes are generally much to light. A random site I have open right now has a background color of #f2f2f2 w/ text color of #151515, it is only tolerable to read if I have my monitor red-shifted to around 4200 degrees (in a well lit room w/ lots of natural light).

> most of the time that's not really a healthy situation to be in

Please explain.

Sleep hygiene. I'm in college and I know too many people that waste away online until 3am and are always tired and then down coffee after coffee during the day.

Other than that,

> sitting in a dark room with your screen as your only light source

is also really not great for your eyes, in the same way that having a bright light source in your field of vision (e.g. a window without blackout shades directly behind your monitor) isn't either.

I call bullshit.

I'm using computers/TV/Phones in dark room, on an average 12h+ a day, for ~20 years. My eyes are just fine. Last time (and only time) I went to an eye doctor two years ago because people like you keep saying my eyes are damaged, the doctor asked me why am I wasting my money going to eye doctor.

Just because someone stays up till 3AM (which I have done for years), doesn't mean they need to sleep less or feel always tired. This has nothing to do with using computer in dark room which is possible even at 3PM.

Also, I don't drink coffee (less than 5 times a year). There are plenty of people who sleep at proper time and still drink a lot of coffee all day.

I use dark mode during the day in rooms with lots of natural light spilling in because that’s what’s felt better to me ever since we collectively decided that light themes need to use stark white and very light grays instead of the mid-grays dappled with mid-colors that used to be popular. Dark mode is a bandaid for the needlessly bright themes that became the norm with the advent of flat design.

I use dark mode in a (moderately) lit room, because it makes me focus better. Even colorschemes can affect my state of mind and make it work differently. I’m not even talking about effectiveness here, just comfort, although they correlate. I can’t just choose light mode.

When screen is too dark (sunlight, etc), I make it brighter. Requires >=400 nit or whatever that unit is for an average day.

Default, unconfigurable dark mode has been around much longer.

> Light mode might be annoying to read in no-light environments, but dark mode is nigh impossible to read in high-light environments. Ever try to read a dark mode UI on your phone on a bright summer's day? Can't read a thing, even with brightness cranked all the way up.

This. once stuck outside with limited battery and tried switching to light mode. could instantly reduce brightness and still see everything.

the nature of lcd display makes it hard to display contrast without backlighting. but the early ones could be effective by showing dark details on a blank slate. this situation brought back my appreciation for having this mode.

All the dark mode extensions I've used also would work for making pages light mode.

For me, I have trouble focusing when reading light mode content, but dark mode is perfectly fine (light backgrounds seem not still, as if there is movement, and this effect lessens the darker the background is.

In my experience, high contrast dark mode is readable in high-light environments, but it causes the issue the images in the article show.

Beyond that, I have no preferences between light and dark modes on laptop screens and smaller. But I prefer having at least some dark elements visible on large screens, because floaters can be distracting against large bright surfaces. Usually it's a terminal window with the traditional light gray on black color scheme, but I tend to use dark mode in IDEs and other full-screen apps.

On my phone I go to dark mode when I'm reading ebooks in bright sunlight. Not sure this a universal experience.

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