With the days becoming shorter and shorter, especially here in Western PA, don’t be suprised if the computer screen is starting to strain your eyes. Especially if you’re a night owl. For everyone else, the effects may become more apparent as we lose daylight.
Picture it. You access a webpage and the brightness blows out the whole room, not sparing your eyes pain and strain.
Thankfully, there is a simple fix – forcing Dark Mode on your browser. The industry has been moving more and more in the direction of dark-themed sites over the last few years. Most notably, Facebook is introducing a user interface change and providing users with the option for Dark Mode.
But what if your favorite site just doesn’t offer that option? It’s no quick task to restyle an entire website to switch up to colors that are easier on the eye in the late-night hours. So here’s 5 quick steps to force Dark-Mode on ANY website.
1. Open up the Chrome browser
Launch Google Chrome and type the following into the url bar:
chrome://flags
You’ll be brought to a page that looks like this:
It may look intimidating with all the warnings, but you did just search for “flags”.
2. Bookmark the url
That’s right, Future-You will thank Present-You.
Make the page easily accessible. Hit Ctl+D to open the bookmarks window, and the name the page something like Dark Mode. This comes in super handy when you want to toggle Dark mode back off.
And, you inevitably will.
If quick and easy is your thing, be sure to add this to the Bookmarks bar.
3. Search for “Dark Mode”
At the top of the chrome://flags page, there is a search bar. Simply type dark mode and the page will find the corresponding task for you.
4. Enable Force Dark Mode for Web Contents
Click on the dropdown for the option Force Dark Mode for Web Contents.
Once you pick Enable, your browser will tell you that these changes will take effect when you relaunch Google Chrome. Make sure you’ve saved any work in other Tabs before Relaunching.
5. Relaunch, and browse.
While every site might not look perfect, you’re eyes will thank you.
Need to undo Dark mode? Click into your bookmarks, or tap on your fancy bookmarks bar button and simply search for dark mode in the page browser.
Switch from Enabled, to Default.
Relaunch, and done.
Bee Digital Marketing, LLC
Indiana, PA
Ashlee is a Web Designer & Digital Marketer in Pennsylvania. She has over 15 years of professional experience in the Tech Industry.
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