Ask HN: Dark Mode for HN?

25 todotask2 29 9/18/2025, 5:47:29 PM
Can we have a dark mode for HackerNews?

Comments (29)

onelesd · 29m ago
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)
bwoah · 25m ago
dredmorbius · 26m ago
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.

xnx · 36m ago
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.
Gualdrapo · 10m ago
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.

wakawaka28 · 30m ago
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.
xnx · 14m ago
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!

frizlab · 13m ago
In that case give me the JSON data, I’ll do the rest.
gausswho · 34m ago
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)

efreak · 40s ago
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)

sirshmooey · 38m ago
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...

minimaxir · 1h ago
A year ago, dang said the team would prefer a more robust theming solution: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41105536
bombcar · 29m ago
We can change the color of the top bar - so everything’s already basically there.
SigmundA · 1h ago
Perfect is the enemy of the good.
arduanika · 52m ago
https://xkcd.com/974/

I'm developing a system to pass arbitrary condiments.

MitPitt · 39m ago
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.
mpicker0 · 37m ago
I use this extension for Stylus on Firefox: https://github.com/pyxelr/hacker-news-bluish-gray
twapi · 53m ago
bbx · 47m ago
UltraMagnus · 1h ago
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.

platelminto · 57m ago
Uhh isn't default HN always 30 items?
magackame · 40m ago
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

rfarley04 · 1h ago
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
asdff · 32m ago
You already do on a mac at least. ctrl-option-command-8.
bombcar · 30m ago
Fond memories of doing this on all the display Macs at CompUSA.
asdff · 11m ago
Surprisingly this is extremely laggy on my m3 pro on macos 14.2.1 now that I test it out...
squigz · 1h ago
All you need is https://darkreader.org/
augusto-moura · 49m ago
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.
liquid_thyme · 1h ago
A+++ , would buy again, :)