Ask HN: Why doesn't HN have dark mode yet?

5 points

a year ago

Hacker News could benefit from native dark mode support. For users who spend significant time reading here, particularly during evening hours or in low-light environments, a dark theme option would reduce eye strain. Currently, users seeking dark mode must install browser extensions that sometimes require broad permissions ("Read and change all your data on websites"). While these extensions work, they introduce an unnecessary dependency and potential privacy concern for what could be handled natively.

The web standard `prefers-color-scheme` media query has been widely supported since 2019, allowing sites to automatically respect users' system preferences. Implementation would involve straightforward CSS additions.

This feature would serve users with light sensitivity, those working in dimly lit spaces, and anyone who simply prefers dark interfaces. Given that many developers already use dark themes in their editors and terminals, there's likely meaningful demand within HN's user base.

The absence of this option stands out among text-heavy sites that have adopted dark modes. While not urgent, it represents a quality-of-life improvement that would cost little to implement but provide genuine value to a subset of the community.

Here are the current styles with dark mode support:

https://gist.github.com/schappim/d688c7090ea2e946e9379e2678d4d820

Previous requests:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=hn%20dark%20mode&sort=byPopularity&type=story

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