Dark Themes

[Infrasonic]

I've been using the Night Eye extension on the free 3 month trial in Chrome browser, with mixed results.
Many logged in sites need switching to filtered with contrast and brightness reduced to be more visually pleasing whilst remaining functional. It works but is a bit fiddly and can slow the PC when a load of tabs are open as it re-renders the page.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/deta ... e-ntp-icon


So I'm currently trying out Dark Reader...https://chrome.google.com/webstore/deta ... e-ntp-icon

Edge has a 'Dark Theme' in settings but it isn't all encompassing, the odd bit of white still appears to blind you.
Night Eye is available across a few browser platforms now including Edge, hopefully Dark Reader will get ported across soon.

I also messed with W10 high contrast mode and dark themes but it is too restrictive, not enough granularity yet. The 1970's terminal mode was cool for a bit though, green on black in Explorer et al.
If they tweak it a bit more it could be worth another go, maybe the October major update will have some pleasant surprises?

[vrdiver]

Have you had a play with "Night Light Settings" in W10? It can be set to be fairly subtle but does seem to make a difference in the evenings when I'm trying to wind down for the day.

VRD

[Infrasonic]

Have you had a play with "Night Light Settings" in W10? It can be set to be fairly subtle but does seem to make a difference in the evenings when I'm trying to wind down for the day.

VRD

Yes, the subtle candle light yellow tinge got on my wick after a while, so a more obvious dark theme was required.
I am using a similar app on my Android phone though called twilight...https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... ndroid.lux

[JonE]

Have you had a play with "Night Light Settings" in W10?

Depending on one's motivation for wanting a less bright display, another avenue of investigation for the whole-monitor rather than just a browser window is F.lux (cross-platform) which has been around for some years:
https://justgetflux.com/

Cheers!

[Breelander]

You may like to know that the 'October 2018 Update' Windows 10 version 1809 has extended its dark theme to File Explorer. Version 1809 is expected to be released in the next few weeks.

[88V8]

Last winter, I became worried about the effect blue light was having on my eyes, so I installed flux as recommended above.
It does tone things down. One can adjust the settings.
There is impact during browsing, one can see the wheels turning as it moderates the screen colours of the PC.
But I only have one pair of eyes so I'll stick with it.

V8

[Infrasonic]

Dark Reader in Chrome browser is working out OK, set a hotkey of CTRL+D to toggle on and off to set a site by site whitelist (many sites already allow a dark theme within their settings and if you run both the text can be a bit strange colour wise...) and I've tweaked the monitor settings a bit more, turning brightness down to 40% now.
Trying out W10 night light settings again, on very low, just to take the blue light edge off the white bits.

Chrome browser now has a background colour option in the new tab setting. Gear wheel bottom right corner, so the usual vast expanse of white can be changed to something less retina damaging. The purple is quite fetching. You can't do that on the home page google.com (yet anyway) so I've got new tab as my default in settings. If you run more than one page as your default then in settings go to start up and use current pages to get new tab + a n other pages saved.

I noticed that the Android Youtube app update now has a dark theme, looks good, the desktop web page can be run similarly, which I do.
I've not found an overall solution on Android (I'm on 6.0.1 and can't update any further OTA, more recent versions may have global screen options I'm not aware of...). The Twilight app is a bit hit and miss, the free version is a bit limited and turns itself off rather randomly, especially on video.
There is a paid for pro version where the developers main effort goes (I presume.) I might wait for it to go on flash sale and pay up.

[absolutezero]

Last winter, I became worried about the effect blue light was having on my eyes, so I installed flux as recommended above.
It does tone things down. One can adjust the settings.
There is impact during browsing, one can see the wheels turning as it moderates the screen colours of the PC.
But I only have one pair of eyes so I'll stick with it.

V8

Is there any actual proper research into this 'blue light' which says it leads to blindness or eye damage?
Or is it another one of these pieces of accepted wisdom that everyone believes but has no basis in fact?

[Infrasonic]

Last winter, I became worried about the effect blue light was having on my eyes, so I installed flux as recommended above.
It does tone things down. One can adjust the settings.
There is impact during browsing, one can see the wheels turning as it moderates the screen colours of the PC.
But I only have one pair of eyes so I'll stick with it.

V8

Is there any actual proper research into this 'blue light' which says it leads to blindness or eye damage?
Or is it another one of these pieces of accepted wisdom that everyone believes but has no basis in fact?

It's just a comfort thing for me, web/screen pages full of bright white are not a pleasant viewing experience day or night, and apparently dark themes are one of the most requested features for phone apps and web pages, so the mass demand is there.

[absolutezero]

Last winter, I became worried about the effect blue light was having on my eyes, so I installed flux as recommended above.
It does tone things down. One can adjust the settings.
There is impact during browsing, one can see the wheels turning as it moderates the screen colours of the PC.
But I only have one pair of eyes so I'll stick with it.

V8

Is there any actual proper research into this 'blue light' which says it leads to blindness or eye damage?
Or is it another one of these pieces of accepted wisdom that everyone believes but has no basis in fact?

It's just a comfort thing for me, web/screen pages full of bright white are not a pleasant viewing experience day or night, and apparently dark themes are one of the most requested features for phone apps and web pages, so the mass demand is there.

I agree with you. I have the 'night light' on my computers and phone activated all the time (except for between 3.45am and 4.00am (because windows insisted on a 15 minute gap).
I'm just wondering if there is any kind of medical consensus on whether extended exposure to 'blue light' is hazardous.
The blue end of the spectrum is higher frequency and so carries more energy than the 'warmer' colours but is there any medical evidence for it causing damage beyond not being very nice to look at?

[Breelander]

I'm just wondering if there is any kind of medical consensus on whether extended exposure to 'blue light' is hazardous...

here you are (with references)...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4734149/

[absolutezero]

I'm just wondering if there is any kind of medical consensus on whether extended exposure to 'blue light' is hazardous...

here you are (with references)...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4734149/

Although we are convinced that exposure to blue light from LEDs in the range 470–480 nm for a short to medium period (days to a few weeks) should not significantly increase the risk of development of ocular pathologies, this conclusion cannot be generalized to a long-term exposure (months to years). Finally, we believe that additional studies on the safety of long-term exposure to low levels of blue light are needed to determine the effects of blue light on the eye.

Seems inconclusive. I.e. We don't think there is a significant risk but we need more information.

Are we going to see mass blindness of office workers in 30 years' time?

[absolutezero]

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/opo.12414
Interesting article from the College of Optometrists.