Slashdot Mirror


Chrome on Windows 10 To Get Dark Mode Feature Soon (hothardware.com)

Last year, Google pushed 'dark mode', a feature that replaces the shiny, whitespace background on a web page with a dark color, to its Android operating system and YouTube service. The company is now working to expand the feature to Chrome's Windows 10 application. Peter Kasting, a Chrome developer, confirmed the move in response to a user's query on a Reddit thread. He said a "native dark mode support is in progress" for Chrome's desktop application. Until then, reminded Kasting, "we generally suggest people use a dark theme" for Chrome via a third-party extension.

32 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. Just look at Slashdot by CptLoRes · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This page is a prime example of something in need of a dark mode.

    1. Re:Just look at Slashdot by jfdavis668 · · Score: 1

      or an off mode.

    2. Re:Just look at Slashdot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative
    3. Re:Just look at Slashdot by ClickOnThis · · Score: 1

      This page is a prime example of something in need of a dark mode.

      You're not wrong.

      But consider that content-providers might want to have some control over the look of their content on peoples' devices. No doubt they can't stop dark-mode from happening anyway, and I'm certainly not going to shed a tear over that. Arguably it's a consumer-friendly option that should be embraced.

      We already have injected, targeted content (ads) in various media, including browsers, live sporting events, and cable broadcasts, that content-providers may not be able to control or consent to. But messing around with the way the page looks and feels -- first with color-maps, and potentially with other things such as fonts, frame-placement, link actions, and so on -- might be going too far.

      Imagine a browser that converts certain sites into 1990s-style retinal-torture pastels, with flashing backgrounds and headlines on fire. An extreme and unlikely example, but it illustrates how a device can alter someone's experience of a site in a way the content-provider might object to.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    4. Re:Just look at Slashdot by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 2

      Or a UTF-8 support mode.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    5. Re:Just look at Slashdot by ChatHuant · · Score: 1

      Imagine a browser that converts certain sites into 1990s-style retinal-torture pastels, with flashing backgrounds and headlines on fire.

      I fail to see the problem, as long as this is the user's choice. Maybe some people like 1990 style. Other people may choose to see black text on a white page, or green text on a dark background. Yet other people may have some eye problem and pick the combination of colors, fonts and sizes that let them see best. It's unclear to me why you'd think users having choices is bad.

      Consider the reverse though: what if the page "artist" decides to use the "1990s-style retinal-torture pastels" etc., and users would be forced to suffer through it if they wanted to access the contents at all? How would this be in any way good?

    6. Re:Just look at Slashdot by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      Well, it doesn't need a command mode, or as we say in the biz, a commode.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    7. Re:Just look at Slashdot by datavirtue · · Score: 2

      Oh thank god. Where have you been my whole life?!

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    8. Re:Just look at Slashdot by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      It's unclear to me why you'd think users having choices is bad.

      Because *I* have better taste than them, and I have a piece of paper and 40k of debt to prove it.

      Signed,
          Some vegafarian twat with a beret, ethnic tattoos, and piercings in places most people don't even have places.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  2. Proper UI programming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There would be no need to implement a "dark mode" if google just used whatever color scheme a user has chosen in the windows control panel.

    But no, they had to skin their own UI components over the top of the windows UI like stupid "bubbly interfaced" programs did in the 90's

    You know what i'm talking about, the stupid shit like this that was all to common back then https://www.reddit.com/r/nostalgia/comments/66soci/windows_media_player_skins/

    1. Re:Proper UI programming by The+MAZZTer · · Score: 2

      Windows 10 no longer allows you to switch color themes so there's really no point in Google supporting that/ The only options it provides the user with are High Contrast themes (where certain colors can be customized) and dark mode (which doesn't actually adjust system colors).

      This change was probably made since lots of programs don't respect system colors anyway. I used to try to set white text on a black background. Many apps hardcode black as a text color so this usually will break a number of apps.

    2. Re:Proper UI programming by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      Funny. They are copying from edge after copying the horrible tabs from Firefox lol. Dark mode rocks on Edge and Windows Explorer.

    3. Re:Proper UI programming by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

      Google really doesn't care about innovation anymore as evidenced by dragging ass in putting a silence button on tabs with sound, especially autoplay.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  3. About time by thsths · · Score: 1

    A system wide setting for dark mode is logically better than a site by site or program by program setting, so this seems well overdue.

    Of course for legacy sites like Slashdot, it will need to work some magic.

    1. Re:About time by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      They can't even support UTF-8 and you're hoping they add support for dark mode? That's what I call optimism.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
  4. Pot calling Kettle Dark by xack · · Score: 1

    So they won't let us have the classic Chrome UI, yet they will give us a gimmicky dark mode as a replacement. Enough is enough, we need a "Pale Moon" of Chrome.

    1. Re:Pot calling Kettle Dark by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      yet they will give us a gimmicky dark mode

      One man's gimmick is 10000 other men's default. The reality is few people give a crap about classic UI, but many people care seem to care about light and dark mode for all programs on all platforms.

    2. Re:Pot calling Kettle Dark by oogoliegoogolie · · Score: 1

      Although not totally useless considering how much UI space today is wasted by empty white-space, dark themes are just a fad that is driven by the 30-and-under crowd rediscovering something that has existed at least since the Windows 3.1 days of the early 90's: THEMES and SKINS.

  5. Re:Crap by ClickOnThis · · Score: 1

    Chrome for Mac should get it no less than a year before Chrome for Windows. Apple invented dark mode. Honor them.

    Apple 'invented' dark mode? The original CRT with a CL prompt was dark-mode by design, and it predates Apple's very existence by many years.

    --
    If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
  6. Re:"Keeping up with Google" by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

    Oh, what is she planning to wear next summer?

    Wait, who the fuck is Kim Kardashian and why should I care?

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  7. Re:Chrome sucks by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

    If they really wanted to sell more ads, they would stop trying to guess what I'm interested in and ask me directly. And stop adding things to my ads choice profile without asking me.

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  8. Re:"Keeping up with Google" by bn-7bc · · Score: 1

    Some kind of realiry tv female with rather low inteligence iirc, but as I dont care to much about it (reality tv rates very low with me) i could be wrong

  9. Remember when html was mostly color agnostic? by Fly+Swatter · · Score: 2

    And most pages were rendered in your preferred colors? I miss those days. So chrome is trying to bring that back. How innovative.

  10. Tab style back? by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

    They do not even have to make it default. I just want the option to put it back as it makes it easier to sort through tabs

  11. Re: Stop with the stupid fads. NOT WANTED. by baker_tony · · Score: 1

    I love dark mode everywhere. Reduces my ocular migraines and eye strain substantially.
    One woman's fad is another man's godsend.

  12. Re:Stop with the stupid fads. NOT WANTED. by Stephen+Chadfield · · Score: 2

    The first GUIs I used were DECWindows on VMS and OPEN LOOK on Solaris. Both used dark text on a light background. That is what I am used too and what I still prefer. I find it hard to read light text on dark backgrounds.

    And don't get me started on the fad for low contrast affecting Linux GUI themes and trendy website designs...

  13. Re:Stop with the stupid fads. NOT WANTED. by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

    Nice strawman, but the first operating systems did not have GUIs. Light backgrounds are murder on the eyes.

    For some people. I don't find it murder on my eyes- but, I'm In a well lit room. If you're in a dark room with little ambient lighting, then dark backgrounds may indeed be better.

    The brightness of the backgrounds changed because where we use devices (and who uses devices has changed).

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  14. Re:More Leftist Propaganda by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

    Trump demands an orange mode with walled borders on the chrome to honor his superior presidency.

    When I was a kid my Dad had a monitor that was an "orangescreen". It had nice thick bezels (walls), as did everything then. They did used to exist. Not all greenscreens were green.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  15. This is not news by DarkRookie2 · · Score: 1

    Software with the options to change some RGB values is not new or news.
    Stop treating it as such.

    --
    http://progressquest.com/spoltog.php?name=Son+Of+Son+Of+DarkRookie
  16. Re:"Keeping up with Google" by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    Someone from DS9 I think.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  17. Re:Stop with the stupid fads. NOT WANTED. by Stephen+Chadfield · · Score: 1

    I am talking about the colours used for graphical user interfaces not those for primitive text terminals. From the start GUIs were dark text on a black background. That includes the console emulators like xterm.

    Use of light text on dark backgrounds is, like low contrast use, a modern fad and is hard to read.

  18. Re:Stop with the stupid fads. NOT WANTED. by Stephen+Chadfield · · Score: 1

    Of course I meant "dark text on a light background". Where is my coffee..