
Show HN: Dark Reader extension – Dark mode for every website - alexanderby
http://darkreader.org/
======
chicob
I often use the reader mode in Firefox. Although it is not the same as a dark
mode for a whole webpage, it is pretty good at removing clutter and making a
web text easier to read. With the added bonus that there are no permissions
involved (although I suspect the latter are absolutely necessary for the addon
to work, without sharing data to 3rd parties).

It is even possible to save a bookmark in Firefox with reader mode already
enabled, by adding about:reader?url= before the url.

~~~
slim
You can set dark mode in reader view (firefox mobile)

~~~
chicob
In desktop Firefox there is a dark background option, which is my favorite,
along with serif font. I used to postpone my reading list until reading mode
came about, because the white screen is just too much sometimes.

------
dmos62
I tried this a few months back, I liked the visual effect and the
configuration flexibility, but it ate at my CPU waaay too much. Anybody else
have this? Was meaning to look for a lightweight alternative. Maybe I'll try
this extension again to see if it's still a resource hog.

Note: I'm on Firefox.

~~~
anewguy9000
a fast and simple alternative for firefox (and android) is this one:

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/night-
light-m...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/night-light-mode/)

please let us know if it performs better for you! (i'm the author)

~~~
dmos62
I've tried it just a few hours ago, at the moment it's my goto alternative,
cheers! The only downside to your extension is that I can't regulate the
visual contrast, so some text, like HN content text, is a bit too glaringly
bright.

Also, I'm not sure why, but the monospace text in the HN reply box is quite
unpleasant to read when inverted.

But good effort! Is it open source?

~~~
anewguy9000
yup its open source:

[https://github.com/conceptualspace/nightlight](https://github.com/conceptualspace/nightlight)

and thanks for the feedback!

------
nathanaldensr
On Firefox, I love the _Owl - Dark Background_ app.

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/owl](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/owl)

~~~
bootlooped
I'll have to try that. I never had performance issues with Dark Reader on
Chrome, but I find it to be slow on Firefox.

~~~
godelmachine
I find it slowing my Chrome too. Is there an app that we let me benchmark my
browser performance with Dark reader app and without dark reader app?

~~~
alexanderby
Then you should try switching to Filter or Static mode.

------
apk-d
Does anyone actually prefer reading text on a bright background? If so, what
are your reasons? For me, the choice is obvious to the point that I'm often
annoyed at the lengths I need to go to in order to browse the web comfortably.
I feel like we should have moved to the sane default of dark-themed UI ages
ago.

~~~
skymt
Honest question: how well-lit is the area you use your computer in, and have
you tried turning down your monitor's brightness? I'm as baffled by the
popularity of dark themes as you are with light themes, but I'm sitting in a
fairly bright room with natural light and a monitor at 35% brightness. In
these conditions dark-on-light and light-on-dark text are equally pleasant to
read, and I opt for light themes when given the choice simply for consistency.
If you're using dark themes because you browse the web in the dark, it seems
to me like changing your conditions is a better solution for your eye health.

~~~
kitsunesoba
It really bugs me for my monitor to not be at or near max brightness because
of how terrible the colors look at low brightness, even on high end IPS
panels. This isn’t an issue on my OLED phone, which has great colors even at
the lowest brightness, but nobody makes 27” OLED monitors and if they did
they’d be prohibitively expensive.

~~~
tadfisher
Are you speaking subjectively, or are you saying reducing the backlight level
is affecting the color reproduction of your IPS display?

I've found that while I may need to recalibrate with my Spyder, color accuracy
is essentially unchanged at 50% brightness.

~~~
TimTheTinker
Display brightness establishes the absolute limits of its output color space
(i.e. the display's dynamic range).

By which I mean: bright colors won't be anywhere as bright with a dim display
as they would be when the brightness is turned up. And the difference between
dark and light colors is more pronounced with a higher brightness level.

------
UI_at_80x24
I'm almost blind (legally), and this is the first extension I found that
PERFECTLY fixes the contrast so I don't need 20-point font zoom to be able to
read it. I have tried dozens of FF extensions to adjust contrast, dark theme,
etc... none have worked this well.

I wonder if the creator is a fan of

[https://contrastrebellion.com/](https://contrastrebellion.com/)

It Just Works!

I'm buying this tonight. Thank-you very much.

------
canacrypto
I've been using this for a few weeks and overall I'm happy with it. I do find
that some complex web apps like gmaps or gmail slow down with this extension
enabled. Particularly so in Firefox.

~~~
Fedoranimus
Gmail is pretty slow in Firefox no matter what.

------
hambos22
I use it daily in conjunction with f.lux and its been an essential combination
for a smooth transition to late-night working/surfing/reading.

Specifically, after trying similar extensions, this one is the best. Its css
rules fit perfectly for most of the websites which I visit.

------
blairbeckwith
I've never bought anything so fast. $7 for the safari extension sounds like a
lot, but for how much time I spend on the web and how glaringly white most
pages are when OS X has done a good job with Dark Mode, it's well worth the
price.

------
o9000
I’ve also written a similar addon, although much simpler, using static css
filters:

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dark-mode-night-
re...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dark-mode-night-
reader/hmafjphdklmdjfcnljjeonfpgafanjjc?hl=en)

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dark-mode-
nig...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dark-mode-night-
reader/)

[https://gitlab.com/o9000/darken](https://gitlab.com/o9000/darken)

It has 4 presets that can be configured per domain.

I’ve added by hand rules to fix inverted images on some popular websites.
YouTube is a pain to maintain, they keep changing their css every couple of
months.

The code is simple enough to review even for someone not familiar with JS. And
you can download it and load it as a local extension if you’re worried about
the permission.

I’ve only tested it under Linux, I don’t use anything else. But some users
tell me it works under Windows too.

~~~
l5870uoo9y
This actually seems better (more lightweight and easier to read dark colors
schemes) then the Dark Reader extension.

~~~
o9000
Thanks. I use it myself so I tried hard to make it work well.

------
eternalny1
Dark Background and Light Text is great also ...

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dark-
backgrou...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dark-background-
light-text/)

Fully customizable so you can don't have to go full black/white, you can copy
and dark theme you like and use that as a default.

~~~
godelmachine
Can we also choose which web pages not to add dark theme?

~~~
cowb0yl0gic
Yes, it has per-site configuration from the toolbar; also, a couple of
different modes to choose from if one doesn't work quite so well for a given
site (invert, CSS, simple CSS). I'm pretty happy with this extension (I
switched away from Dark Reader). Also, open source:
[https://github.com/m-khvoinitsky/dark-background-light-
text-...](https://github.com/m-khvoinitsky/dark-background-light-text-
extension)

------
NeedMoreTea
An extension that's become as important to me as uBO. Discovered this only a
couple of months ago thanks to a random comment from someone here on HN. I'd
previously been using another extension that did the same thing, but poorly.

HN now looks like an old school amber monitor, and its default rules get 9 out
of 10 sites spot on, with perfect contrast. Unlike other similar addons seems
able to leave the right highlight and banner colours alone. If some rare site
doesn't work well with the defaults you can tune individually or even add
custom css for that site only. The few times I browse without it my middle-
aged eyes are instantly resenting the excessive whiteness.

So I have to thank you, a lot, for your attention to detail with this. I hope
you receive lots and lots of donations. :)

The only negative I find is it's sometimes _very_ greedy with CPU, especially
if you're switching between a few tabs a lot.

------
sqren
I'm a big fan of dark mode, particularly because I was of the impression that
it was easier on the eyes.

Turns our, it's not so black and white...

In a study from the 1980s: > However, most studies have shown that dark
characters on a light background are superior to light characters on a dark
background (when the refresh rate is fairly high). For example, Bauer and
Cavonius (1980) found that participants were 26% more accurate in reading text
when they read it with dark characters on a light background. Reference:
Bauer, D., & Cavonius, C., R. (1980)

So perhaps dark mode actually puts more strain on the eyes? At least when the
user is not in a dark room.

Very interested to hear about similar research done in this area.

Further reading here:
[https://ux.stackexchange.com/a/53268/22606](https://ux.stackexchange.com/a/53268/22606)

~~~
pieterhg
This is 1980 in a time before OLED screens

~~~
kristofferR
Barely any computers have OLED screens.

------
psychometry
How can I trust that this extension, which has access to every page I visit,
doesn't steal my data? How can I trust that if someone else takes over the
project and releases an update, that my data is still secure?

Looks great, but I'm just so skeptical of browser extensions now.

~~~
alexanderby
Firefox add-ons pass full source code review before the submission after the
Stylish incident. Safari extensions also pass manual review, Apple asks
developer to send an ID card photo. Not sure about Chrome, you have to simply
trust me, the code is not obfuscated and you can always locate the files and
see what the extension does in your browser. Google recently announced some
security changes [https://blog.chromium.org/2018/10/trustworthy-chrome-
extensi...](https://blog.chromium.org/2018/10/trustworthy-chrome-extensions-
by-default.html)

~~~
kristofferR
Is that really true? I was really alarmed when this extension requested access
to all websites and added a ton of obfuscated code with the latest version for
no apparent reason: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/restore-
old-t...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/restore-old-theme-of-
youtube/)

I've reported it, but nothing seems to happen.

~~~
rickycook
yes. to submit to firefox you’re required to provide them with the source
code, but you may transpile it so long as they can verify that it’s the same
AFAIK?

------
elektor
This app is a godsend for people with eye floaters.

~~~
abcdcba
I was about to post this. My office has way too much fluorescent light so I
can see all my floaters. This extension keeps me sane.

------
mcjiggerlog
The results are really impressive, but any large page is very noticeably
slower to load.

~~~
bootlooped
What browser are you using? I've been using this extension for a couple years
and I notice that it is much slower on Firefox compared to Chrome.

~~~
mcjiggerlog
Firefox on macOS Mojave

------
IronCoderXYZ
I have used this extension for the past few months, and I couldn't be more
pleased, it takes a huge strain away from my eyes. Highly recommend! And
thanks to the author (cheers)

------
giancarlostoro
I use this extension on both Firefox and Chrome. I sometimes disable it on
some sites just because I'm too used to their original design like Google, but
it works nicely on a number of sites. We needed something to override the
color scheme of an internal instance of Confluence / BitBucket and I found
this plugin and it worked out well, at least 2 other team members use it after
I suggested it.

------
fencepost
This looks to have a more polished GUI than Dark Background and Light Text (on
Firefox, _particularly_ on mobile), but I'm not sure it offers the same
flexibility of multiple ways to achieve color changes. I've run into a few
sites where one method didn't work well but another did and having all that
built in is handy.

------
nikivi
Really awesome extension. I am just waiting for the developer to fix Dark
Reader breaking sVim link hinting on Safari. It makes link hints unreadable
and thus I can't use the extension yet although I really wish I could.

A hotkey to turn on/off the dark mode is also coming soon and with that the
extension will be perfect.

------
zapzupnz
I'd love to have the dark theming off by default, and enable it on a per-site
basis. I prefer black-on-white, but there are some sites that benefit from
being the other way around. Currently, I have to basically disable theming for
every website except the ones I want darkened, which is a bit inefficient, or
turn the extension off completely.

Also, since Safari users have to pay for the app, I wonder if it's possible to
add some Safari-specific features. I'd really love iCloud sync to keep my
custom site theme settings across my Macs. I'm not actually sure to what
extent this is possible with apps that provide extensions to Safari, but some
minor value-add like that could be nice.

------
Arubis
This is really neat! Have left it going all day and it’s quite an improvement.

That said, what it’s really done for me is remind me of how much I miss
Nocturne: [https://github.com/strider72/blacktree-
nocturne](https://github.com/strider72/blacktree-nocturne) (but originally
from Blacktree, the original publisher of Quicksilver). Even the Github
version linked there is long abandoned, so hard to try on for yourself—but the
monochrome inverted night mode was far and away the best late night coding
environment I’ve tested my eyes on.

------
kristofferR
How long will it likely be until the automatic dark mode toggling is available
in Chrome/Firefox? I'm not a fan of Safari.

Does it require Chrome and Firefox to implement _prefers-color-scheme_ first?

~~~
alexanderby
Unfortunately Chrome and Firefox API has no this feature yet. Time Settings
(ability to set active hours) were implemented recently and soon will be
published.

------
j45
This extension so far is neat to try with the day to day sites I visit.

The security settings do seem to be concerning, but I'm not sure if it's due
to how much Firefox, Safari and Chrome have locked down their worlds.

Edit: One unintended side effect is copying and pasting text into an email
(like an address from a google search) copies the text with a black
background. I could do a plaintext copy, but it would be nice if text was
copied in the original formatting if possible.

------
wwweston
1994: trust the browser for presentation

1997: geez the browser makes some dull or terrible decisions about
presentation and we want to control our site's presentation

2005: OK but semantic web and CSS tho'

2013: JavaScript all the things!

2015: whoever thought the semantic web was a decent idea, the browser is THE
VM, CSS is teh sux0rs, when can I just treat it like a compile target like
every other kind of development

2018: oh hai what if we invented some way to let users control how they see
the content of a website

~~~
drKarl
There's the Stylish extension since 2005

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Now with added spyware. :(

~~~
wwweston
This is one of the reasons that I'm a bit wary of using extensions for
handling these kinds of needs. It might be different if there were a
permissions model that didn't seem to require "Read and change all your data
on the websites you visit" for most useful extensions.

Better user stylesheet support in the browser seems safer.

------
O2F2
Since there's quite a few of these dark mode extensions with very variable
features and compatibility/robustness, I feel like there's space for a
comparison chart type thing. With side by side screenshots of how they handle
certain websites and how they influence performance (that might be tricky). If
someone want's to steal that idea go ahead, otherwise I might whip something
up somewhere over the next weeks.

~~~
alexanderby
Dark Reader provides all 3 possible modes: \- Static: simple and fast. \-
Filter: simple, but uses GPU very much and usually inverts already dark parts.
\- Dynamic: complex, but tries to achieve the best visual results. There are
some known issues and the work on it is in progress.

Here are some more details [https://darkreader.org/help/en/#theme-generation-
modes](https://darkreader.org/help/en/#theme-generation-modes)

------
freakz
A question for anyone that knows. With this extension I like to keep
everything in light mode with Brightness, Contrast and Sepia off, and
Greyscale to 100%. While I like dark mode on macOS all the time I don't really
like the web content on dark mode, but with this greyscale setup I feel my
eyes relax while keeping images in color in the content. Long term is this
setup good or bad for the eyes?

------
vages
Monthly sponsor of this for $2.

------
deepnet
My late night tired eyes, thank you - now I can browse without waking my
partner :)

The white sheet of paper metaphor of black on white text is to my sensitive
eyes really a shining bright light in my face - I always try to reverse,
invert, darken to white on black text - but black borders and black bars (
android buttons grrr ) then annoying flip to white !

Many thanks this is really good.

------
ionwake
Do the URLS you visit get uploaded in any way to the author of this extension?
I saw you have to give it read permissions.

~~~
alexanderby
No. You can locate the files of the extension and ensure that it doesn't make
anything severe, the code is not obfuscated.

------
iraldir
Been using using it for a couple month (on chrome), very happy with it. The
only thing I wish would be for the the "theme preference" (sepia, contrast
etc.) to be on a website per website basis. I don't have the same needs on say
HackerNews and Google Maps

~~~
alexanderby
You can already use per-site settings [https://darkreader.org/blog/custom-
site-settings/](https://darkreader.org/blog/custom-site-settings/)

------
lenocinor
Been using this for months (in Chrome) and mostly it's great. My few gripes
are: \-- Google Sheets will put text in light grey instead of black \-- The
CPU usage shoots up a bit now and then \-- Sometimes I see a website flicker
in white for a moment first

------
jamescampbell
This is a beautifully done extension. Using it both in Safari and in Firefox
Nightly right now.

------
farmerbb
I seriously _just_ started using this extension a few days ago, after getting
tired of toggling my Chromebook's invert colors setting on and off several
times a night.

Thanks for building a great extension! I plan on keeping this installed for a
long time :)

------
nine_k
Stylus + some of the general dark themes solves it for me.

I don't see why a separate extension is needed.

------
mistersquid
I purchased and like the Dark Reader Safari extension (despite already having
the paid Dark Mode extension).

Thank you and kudos.

My only question is with the promotion of a paid Safari extension whether the
developer is concerned about a possible trademark infringement suit.

~~~
alexanderby
I'm an author of both Dark Reader and Dark Reader for Safari.

------
BatFastard
Bless you!

I am sure this will mess up some sites, but for the VAST majority of them this
is awesome!

------
dotdi
I always found managing all my Stylus/Stylish styles too cumbersome and then I
found this a while ago. Instantly donated. It's amazing.

The only gripe I have is that it is a biiit heavy on the resources.

------
sdfin
I like it, but in permissions it says: "This add-on can: Access your data for
all websites"

This doesn't sound good, I wouldn't like to allow an extension to access my
data in bank websites.

~~~
gtsteve
I've developed a few Chrome extensions myself - it needs that to work. The
only way to make it work is to injecting a script into your current webpage,
which changes the appearance. Unfortunately there is no way to also disable
the network connections of that script so it could hypothetically contact
another website and leak your data - note it cannot leak cookies if they are
HTTP only, but this depends on your sensitive website's web developer being
competent.

You must also trust the dependencies of the application as well - refreshingly
there is only one called malevic [0], which itself has no dependencies.

My impression is that the author of this extension is genuinely just trying to
make something good for the benefit of the community but it's not as though
Chrome extensions haven't been purchased before. Also we must trust that the
published extension is the same as the extension in the Github repository, I
don't know of a way to verify this.

The only way to probably be safe is to audit the source code yourself and
install it in development mode. Or just use a different profile for truly
sensitive stuff vs just casual browsing.

[0]
[https://github.com/alexanderby/malevic](https://github.com/alexanderby/malevic)

------
vemkiran
On firefox, when you're turning off dark mode, you have to do it individually
for each open tab. That is painful. It'll be good if that toggle is global.

------
godelmachine
Web pages are slow to load after installing this extension.

------
annadane
I'm always so leery of "random extension x". But if it's featured it can't be
too bad in terms of trust, right...?

------
burtonator
You guys might like the app I've been working on - Polar:

[https://getpolarized.io/](https://getpolarized.io/)

It's a document repository for caching HTML content offline, managing PDFs,
annotating and creating flashcards on the documents you're managing.

We looked at adding dark mode but it didn't work exactly like I would have
hoped so I'm going to take a look at this extension and see if they used any
tricks I didn't think of.

------
9712263
Great job. Install it and instantly love it.

------
nqzero
i'm nearly incapable of reading light-text-on-dark-background (i get visual
auras and nausea). can this extension be used selectively to invert sites that
are naturally dark ?

from the github:

> This extension inverts brightness of web pages

i guess a related question is can it be activated for individual pages (as
opposed to for-all-pages)

~~~
NeedMoreTea
You can whitelist or blacklist. There's a toggle to make it invert listed
sites only, or don't invert the sites on the list.

So you should be able to use it that way round.

------
anewguy9900
i made a similar extension some years ago -- it tries to be fast and injects
very little code. i'm curious to know how the performance compares:

[https://github.com/conceptualspace/nightlight](https://github.com/conceptualspace/nightlight)

~~~
alexanderby
Your code is based on CSS filters. Dark Reader provides this mode too, but
also allows users to fix and share wrongly inverted parts
[https://github.com/darkreader/darkreader/blob/master/src/con...](https://github.com/darkreader/darkreader/blob/master/src/config/inversion-
fixes.config)

Dynamic mode is slower at start, but has no impact on performance after all
the stylesheets were analyzed.

~~~
anewguy9900
nightlight is "dynamic" by using a simple heuristic after pageload to deinvert
if necessary. but the crowdsourced filter is a great idea! might borrow it :)

does your extension run on android? there are two motivations for nightlight
aside from its obvious purpose:

1) be fast on android 2) keep source code simple as possible so everything the
extension does is obvious. when i wrote nightlight it was difficult to
evaluate the safety of the other extensions at the time, something important
to me for a plugin which has full access to all browsing

~~~
alexanderby
Yes, it works in Firefox for Android and in Yandex browser. The only issue
with Firefox is white user interface and white default color.

------
fabdub
prefer this, and cheaper : [https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/dark-mode-for-
safari/id13971...](https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/dark-mode-for-
safari/id1397180934?l=fr&mt=12)

~~~
alexanderby
Of course it will be cheaper. When you take some code from the original Dark
Reader, obfuscate it, add some features, then you can put a $2 label.

------
distantsounds
using it right now, have been for a while :) sadly certain sites with lots of
dynamic content or tabular data (zendesk comes to mind) chokes the browser, i
have to turn off the dynamic mode which imho is the best feature of the
plugin.

------
balibebas
With dark sites coming back en vogue with and even entire blogging platforms
like After Dark[0] now available is the 90's all over again. Hopefully these
new sites eschew the mistakes we've made harvesting data in the past.

[0] [https://after-dark.habd.as](https://after-dark.habd.as)

------
ekzy
It seems free on Chrome and Firefox but £5 for Safari... :( Why?

~~~
alexanderby
The quick answer is: it makes it possible to work on project full-time. Only 1
of 2000 makes a donation
[https://darkreader.org/blog/500k-users/](https://darkreader.org/blog/500k-users/)

~~~
ekzy
I agree about selling the product. My question was about Safari, and why only
on Safari users have to pay. Isn't it a bit like having your website say
"works better in Chrome"? Don't get me wrong, I am still grateful that the
extension is available on Safari, but it just seems a bit unfair

~~~
alexanderby
I'm trying different approaches. The crowdfunding was not very successful, so
I decided to try making the app paid for Safari, since the platform is
technically different and users count is low. App Store makes its best in
selling the apps.

At the same time Chrome Web Store is not suitable for paid apps, today it
looks like a big dump: it is filled with outdated and poor made extensions.
Raking system makes good apps hardly discoverable. Also paid Chrome extensions
work only in 36 countries. Dark Reader owes its popularity to Hacker Vision
extension that became paid some day. Maybe that's the reason why some
developers prefer monetizing their extensions by selling users browsing
history.

------
wozmirek
Sweet, thanks! Just got it and checking it out :)

------
holtalanm
works great on opera as well.

~~~
alexanderby
The newest Opera has some changes, to make the extension work on Google Search
you have to open Extensions page and click "Allow access to search page
results".

------
ud0
Doesn't work on Chrome Canary.

~~~
alexanderby
Just checked, it works on Canary too.

------
defanor
While it is nice, there are more lightweight and snappy ways to achieve a dark
background (or desirable styles in general) -- such as setting a global CSS,
using built-in color overriding (at least in FF it's available, along with
font overriding), using web browsers that don't apply CSS. Some people even
use system-wide color inversion. Each method has its pros and cons though.

Stylus is one of the handy FF extensions, which allows to switch between CSS
themes quickly/easily.

~~~
alexanderby
Dark Reader also offers static CSS support
[https://darkreader.org/blog/stylish/](https://darkreader.org/blog/stylish/)

Global CSS will work well on text websites. For many others it will break up
the coloring and make page parts hardly distinguishable.

~~~
kristofferR
Any plans to implement proper UserStyles.org support where themes can auto-
update like with Stylus? Some of the most popular style sheets update quite
frequently.

~~~
alexanderby
Stylus already does it well, so I think you could use Stylus for such
websites. UserStyles.org is still owned by SimilarWeb, so I would stay away
from it. What is planned is to add some static themes for popular websites.

