About Dark Reader
Dark Reader is the best-known dark mode extension, and the idea is simple. Instead of waiting for each site to offer a dark theme, it rewrites the page's colours as it loads, so almost any website turns dark. It is made by Dark Reader Ltd, has been developed since 2014, and is MIT licensed on GitHub.
You can adjust brightness, contrast, sepia and fonts, switch between a dark theme and a lighter filter mode, and turn it off for individual sites. It can follow a schedule or your system setting. The Chrome version is Manifest V3, and it is also listed on Firefox (Recommended by Mozilla), Edge and Safari. Its privacy policy says it has never collected personal data or browsing history.
The core extension is free and partly funded by donations through Open Collective, but there are commercial edges. Dark Reader Plus, an optional paid upgrade described on its Edge listing, adds premium themes and custom colours, and the Safari app is a paid download. Look-alikes exist, and malware-removal guides describe a fake "Dark Reader for Chrome" that injects ads, so install from the links on darkreader.org. For most people, this is the one to start with.
Pros and cons
- Open source under the MIT licence, developed since 2014
- Fine control over brightness, contrast, sepia and per-site rules
- Listed for Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Safari
- Recommended by Mozilla, with about 1.4 million Firefox users
- Optional paid Dark Reader Plus and a paid Safari app
- Can clash with sites that already have a dark theme
- Look-alike listings exist in the stores
Permissions
It can read and change data on all websites, because it has to restyle every page you visit. It also uses storage, scripting, alarms and font-settings access for its settings and themes, and asks separately for a context-menu option.
