Hacker News before and after
Real screenshots of a Hacker News comment thread (item 8863, from 2007), taken with the extension. They are not mockups.
Engine used: Auto Engine
How to turn on dark mode for Hacker News
- Add ThemeSwitcher to Chrome from the Chrome Web Store. It is free, and the side panel needs Chrome 114 or newer.
- Open news.ycombinator.com in a tab.
- Click the ThemeSwitcher icon in the toolbar to open the side panel.
- Choose Auto Engine and turn dark mode on. ThemeSwitcher remembers both for news.ycombinator.com. Alt+Shift+D toggles it from the keyboard.
- If something looks wrong, press Report this site as broken. It shows the domain it will send, and sends only after you press Send report.
What changes on Hacker News
- The beige page and comment area turn near-black and the comment text turns white.
- The orange header bar keeps its colour, and the Y logo box keeps its border.
- Usernames, dates and the navigation links turn light blue. On the orange bar this blue has lower contrast than the white text elsewhere.
- The grey vote arrows stay grey.
Frequently asked questions
Which ThemeSwitcher engine works best on Hacker News?
The screenshots on this page were taken with the Auto engine, which picked its CSS mode on this page and recolors backgrounds and text by contrast. ThemeSwitcher remembers the engine you pick for news.ycombinator.com.
Will the orange header stay orange?
Yes. In the screenshot the orange bar keeps its colour. The navigation links on it turn light blue, which is readable but has less contrast than the rest of the page.
Does ThemeSwitcher see which stories I read?
The page is recolored on your device. ThemeSwitcher never sends page addresses or page content. The optional usage report is off unless you turn it on and never includes sites. A broken-site report is sent only if you press Report this site as broken and confirm it, and it contains just the domain, engine, theme label and version.