Staring at a screen all day? Rather than trying to abstain (which, for most people, is practically impossible), try dimming the lights. Whether you set up a home office, take your laptop to the local coffee shop, or spend the day between cubicle walls, give your eyes a break by enabling dark mode in your web browser.
Dark mode won't change the color of the pages you visit (that's set by the site's developer), but it'll make the toolbar and settings pages much easier to look at, especially in low-light situation. How you enable the feature depends on which browser you use and your device's operating system. Read on to learn how to enable dark mode in Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge.
Turn on Dark Mode in Chrome
To turn on dark mode for your Chrome browser, head over to Settings > Appearance and use the Mode drop-down menu to choose Dark. Select Theme to customize the app with accent colors of your choosing. On an Android device, open Chrome and view Settings > Theme, then select Dark.
If you don't feel like Chrome's dark mode is up to snuff, your next option is to find a theme you prefer in the Chrome Web Store. To remove a theme, navigate to Settings > Appearance > Reset to default.
Turn on Dark Mode in Firefox
Like Chrome, Firefox makes it easy to add themes to your browser. Open Settings > General, then scroll to the Language and Appearance section and select Dark. Some websites will also change their color scheme based on your settings. You can also tap Extensions & Themes to see more theme options or choose Manage Colors to override Firefox's default text and background colors.
To set the theme in Firefox on Android, open the three-dot menu and navigate to Settings > Customize > Theme > Dark. For iPhone or iPad, select the hamburger menu and tap Turn on Night Mode.
Turn on Dark Mode in Safari
Unlike other browsers, Safari—whether on desktop or mobile—doesn't offer its own dark mode. One solution for individual pages is the browser's Reader View feature, which offers a stripped-down version of articles and lets you change the color of the page.
Open a web page you want to read, then select the the aA symbol in the address bar. Pick the darkest shade in the drop-down menu to make the page a little more please on the eyes. If this isn't good enough, you'll have to rely on the default system theme in macOS, iOS, and iPadOS to turn the browser black.
Turn on Dark Mode in Edge
Microsoft's Edge may be based on Google's Chromium browser, but it has offered far more theme options than Chrome. Open the three-dot menu in Edge and head to Settings > Appearance. At the top of the page, you can select the Dark theme. The browser also has several built-in color themes for the menu bar.
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If this isn't enough, scroll past the Theme section and click AI Theme Generator in the menu to create a custom browser theme using Microsoft's AI integrations. You can also click Microsoft Edge Add-ons to find themed extension to add to the browser.
Edge even allows you to change the colors of the web pages you visit. To do this, change the Page colors drop-down to Dusk, Night Sky, or Aquatic and disable Only apply page colors when high contrast themes are on to set a darker theme on all web pages and menus. You can also exclude certain websites if they don't play nice with the feature.
On mobile, open the three-line menu in the bottom-right of the screen and tap Dark mode, then choose the Dark theme to enable dark mode. Otherwise, open Settings > Appearance and select Dark. Enable Dark theme for all web pages to also change the web pages you view.
Enable OS Dark Mode
These days, most major browsers follow your operating system's lead. So if you want to surf the web in dark mode, setting it up OS-wide should take care of the rest. In Windows 10, open Settings > Personalization > Colors and choose Dark from the drop-down menu. For Windows 11, open Settings > System > Personalization (or right-click on the desktop and choose Personalize), then pick a pre-existing theme or change the system colors.
If you're on a Mac, open System Preferences > General and select Dark (or Auto, if you want the theme to change based on time of day). This is the only official way to change the Safari theme.
For those on an iPhone or iPad, you'd go to Settings > Display & Brightness and select Dark (or Auto, if you want the theme to change based on time of day). You can also open Control Center, long-press on the brightness shader, and select the Dark Mode icon.
The process for Android devices will vary by manufacturer and operating system, though it has become fairly streamlined since Android 10. Open Settings > Display and select Dark (Samsung Galaxy) or Settings > Display & touch and enable Dark (Google Pixel). You'll also have the option to schedule when the feature turns on.
