Safari 27.3 forces dark mode onto the 90% of websites that never built one
Safari introduces Adaptive Dark Mode in 27.3
Nearly 40% of web page loads come from users in dark mode, yet only 10% of pages support it. Safari 27.3 beta closes that gap: Adaptive Dark Mode analyzes each page, inverts luminosity while preserving hue, targets WCAG 4.5:1 contrast, and fixes SVG icons and black-and-white logos that lose contrast. Sites can opt out with color-scheme: light only, and Safari blocks detection to protect privacy.
Almost 40% of web page loads are from users in dark mode, and yet only 10% of page loads support it.
- kickingvegas
FYI, light-dark() in CSS is a thing now.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference/V...
- nsoam
I want the opposite. I suffer from astigmatism, which makes white on black hard to read. I wish Safari could turn dark mode websites into light mode websites.
- marcellosso
I use dark mode for everything, so I'm pretty happy about this. Some sites were clearly designed to be light, and forcing dark on them could break the experience, but that's exactly what `color-scheme: light only` is for, and it's good that Safari respects it. Other than that it feels like a win-win to me: great for dark mode users, and for devs not much changes, you just add "light only" if you don't want your site to be affected.
- greazy
Everyone should checkout Dark Reader extension, it's been doing adaptive dark mode for many years, and it's customisable. It even does light mode too. Using it in Firefox on HN right now!
- macNchz
Personally I'm excited for this on iOS—I find that reading boring stuff in dark mode at minimum brightness on my phone is easily the most effective way for me to fall asleep (contrary to the blue light/no phones in bed advice). With an OLED screen the amount of light emitted is so much lower than any alternative I've tried. For sites like HN (some threads on HN are pretty boring) that don't have a native dark mode, my solution has been setting up the "Accessibility Shortcut" feature to invert the colors on the screen. Three clicks on the lock button and the page inverts. It works okay, but it requires manual intervention for each site depending on whether it supports dark mode.
- Reason077
Hacker News itself is a prime example of a website that doesn’t support dark mode, but could do so trivially (and, IMO, would look so much better if it did!)
- JulianPaul
Am I still the only one who doesn't use dark mode? My astigmatism can't take it
- AndrewStephens
This is a good thing.
I added dark mode to my blog a while ago and it was a little trying to do properly.
You can implement a half-assed dark mode yourself by adding the following css.
@media(prefers-color-scheme: dark) {
body {
filter: invert();
}
}
All your images will be inverted as well, which doesn’t work well for photos.