Ask HN: Dark Mode for HN?
45 points
14 hours ago
| 24 comments
| HN
Can we have a dark mode for HackerNews?
onelesd
13 hours ago
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i forget where i found this in an HN comment, but you can use this in uBlock Origin under Filters:

  news.ycombinator.com##body:style(background: black)
  news.ycombinator.com##td:style(color: #fafafa !important)
  news.ycombinator.com##table:style(background-color: #120F0D)
  news.ycombinator.com##div.toptext:style(color: #fafafa)
  news.ycombinator.com##div.c00:style(color: #fafafa !important)
  news.ycombinator.com##a:style(color: #ffa000 !important)
  news.ycombinator.com##span#karma:style(color: #faa000 !important)
  news.ycombinator.com##span.pagetop:style(color: #fafafa !important)
  news.ycombinator.com##textarea:style(color: #fafafa !important; background: inherit; )
  news.ycombinator.com###hnmain:style(background: #120F0D !important)
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bwoah
13 hours ago
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todotask2
13 hours ago
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This time is iOS 26 adds any website shortcut to Home Screen as web app, which definitely need a dark mode.
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xnx
13 hours ago
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Dark mode is great, but better to leave the site with low or no style and to apply personal styling preference in the browser via Dark Reader or Stylus extension.
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Gualdrapo
13 hours ago
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Some sites (and something I did while refactoring my portfolio) is levarage that to CSS. You can set is as to read the light/dark mode setting from the OS and provide a "toggle" to let the user choose between light and dark. This doesn't even need JS, just a couple hidden `<input type="radio">`s and some bits of CSS.

Although as I've said in another comment, things like this, "go to the top" buttons, cookie banners and the like should be task of the web browser, not of the website.

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wakawaka28
13 hours ago
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It would be extremely simple to add dark mode. We're talking about CSS changes here. Instead of having to rely on random extensions being installed everywhere you browse, it could just do what you want from your preferences.
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xnx
13 hours ago
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True, but Dark Reader and Stylus are great extensions that can improve any site.

Being self sufficient is a superpower that should be encouraged on the web. Change colors, fix formatting, remove ads! Power to the user!

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frizlab
13 hours ago
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In that case give me the JSON data, I’ll do the rest.
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dredmorbius
7 hours ago
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How many sites offer this?

I was chuffed a ways back to find a JSON endpoint at the NYTimes.

It was, unfortunately, rather stale.

(It's also since vanished and/or I cannot recall the correct URL. The obvious ones, <https://www.nytimes.com/JSON> and <https://www.nytimes.com/json> don't work. There is a dev portal however: <https://developer.nytimes.com/docs/archive-product/1/overvie...> FAQ: <https://developer.nytimes.com/faq>.)

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throw-the-towel
12 hours ago
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wakawaka28
9 hours ago
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I agree with self-sufficiency but installing a plugin is not always possible, it's not something you make for yourself anyway, why should I trust the plugin guy, etc. Browsers should really come with dark mode features already but I appreciate the option to install a plugin sometimes.
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dredmorbius
13 hours ago
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Linked from my HN profile page is the style I use (via the Stylus browser extension):

Dred's HN CSS Madhackery -- Dark Mode: <https://pastebin.com/6PF3dCXH>

You'll also find there my standard "light mode" styling which is how I typically browse the site.

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clairegraham
12 hours ago
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The Noir app for iOS is what I use and it works well for HN.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/noir-dark-mode-for-safari/id15...

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gausswho
13 hours ago
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I currently use:

On the laptop: Modern HN (https://www.modernhn.com) for Firefox. Not fond of the phoning home to firebase and extensionpay.

On the GrapheneOS Pixel: Harmonic (https://github.com/SimonHalvdansson/Harmonic-HN)

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efreak
13 hours ago
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I really like Harmonic, but there's other features from Materialistic that I miss: - ability to switch back and forth from the article to the comments (in harmonic you have to scroll up or use a second app as browser) - ability to see the comment you're replying to - per-comment menu without long-press - draft comments (pause editing and save the comment to continue later...if you can remember where it was)

Why does every HN app re-implement bookmarks? Why can't they just save them to the HN website? Sure, you'd maybe need to fetch the static page from HN itself instead of using the API, and parse it for the favorite link to get the URL necessary, but it should be fairly simple regardless of whatever other changes are made (the link text is favorite, it's probably the first occurrence of a link with that text and has predictable URL format)

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uKVZe85V
11 hours ago
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Been there, done that. Then dropped dark mode entirely. Strong filtering of blue light (use redshift or whatever your OS provides) beats dark theme IMHO, without the downsides.
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skydhash
4 hours ago
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I default to light mode these days. Astigmatism does not goes well with small, bright details against a dark background. Then I can turn the brightness of the display way down.
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minimaxir
14 hours ago
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A year ago, dang said the team would prefer a more robust theming solution: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41105536
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bombcar
13 hours ago
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We can change the color of the top bar - so everything’s already basically there.
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SigmundA
14 hours ago
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Perfect is the enemy of the good.
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arduanika
14 hours ago
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https://xkcd.com/974/

I'm developing a system to pass arbitrary condiments.

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todotask2
13 hours ago
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This time, iOS 26 adds the ability to create a shortcut to the Home Screen as a web app, which definitely needs a dark mode. It appears that none of the extensions are loaded
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Martin_Silenus
13 hours ago
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Given CSS rules, it would be simple using CSS light-dark() + variables instead of raw colors.

I'm using Dark Reader since a long time now, but more and more often disabling it for some sites supporting HTML relatively recent additions.

Well supported by all mainstream browsers:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/color_value...

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sirshmooey
13 hours ago
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I use the Stylus Chrome extension with CSS:

html {background: #000;} body {filter: invert(.95) hue-rotate(12deg);}

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/stylus/clngdbkpkpee...

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twapi
14 hours ago
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UltraMagnus
14 hours ago
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There is also https://hackerweb.app/

It has the extra benefit of only showing 60 latest HN items in 2 pages of 30, which helps me not spend too much time on HN going down interesting rabbit holes.

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platelminto
14 hours ago
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Uhh isn't default HN always 30 items?
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magackame
13 hours ago
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They mean you can press "more" only once for a maximum of 60 vs HNs "infinite" more button.

EDIT: now I know there is max 35 pages of HN

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MitPitt
13 hours ago
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Stylus extension with Catpuccin theme for HN. Stylus has a bunch of other themes available too. For other websites too. IDK if I trust the proxy websites people are posting in other comments. And they're not comfortable to use with RSS feeds.
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rfarley04
14 hours ago
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I know it's likely not what you're looking for, but I "turned on" Dark Mode HN after reading this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45111854
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jethronethro
11 hours ago
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Based on YC's reaction to the many, many other request like this I'm going to say No. The DIY options in responses are the best you're going to get.
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mpicker0
13 hours ago
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I use this extension for Stylus on Firefox: https://github.com/pyxelr/hacker-news-bluish-gray
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bbx
14 hours ago
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ashish01
12 hours ago
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xnx
12 hours ago
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Wild that Netscape Navigator 1.1 (1995) had the ability to pick background colors for web pages.
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asdff
13 hours ago
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You already do on a mac at least. ctrl-option-command-8.
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bombcar
13 hours ago
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Fond memories of doing this on all the display Macs at CompUSA.
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asdff
13 hours ago
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Surprisingly this is extremely laggy on my m3 pro on macos 14.2.1 now that I test it out...
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squigz
14 hours ago
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All you need is https://darkreader.org/
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augusto-moura
14 hours ago
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Yep, I usually have it setup to whitelist mode, most pages will open normally, but if I want to read some long text and prefer it to be on dark mode, I activate it only for that page.
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liquid_thyme
14 hours ago
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A+++ , would buy again, :)
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pluc
13 hours ago
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Dark Reader for Firefox
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elhenrico
13 hours ago
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