The Best Dark Mode Browser plug in to make all those bright web sites dark is Dark Reader

As soon as I switched my Mac to dark mode, I immediately began to hate all the white on web sites. It is glaring to see so much white on web sites, when everything else on your computer is dark. Some web sites, switch from bright to dark when they detect dark mode, but most have done nothing about it. So it turns to web browser plug ins fill in the gap. Unfortunately most do not work well.

My favorite is the free open source Dark Reader. It is available for Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Edge, though strangely costs $5.99 for safari, and doesn’t work quite the same with the site list, though it still does the conversion of pages just as well.

The plug in gives you options to change your settings on a site by site basis.

And you can keeps sites from being affected or set individual sites to work. It is a great plug in and works the best of any dark mode I have seen and it doesn’t send your user’s data anywhere.

Gave the Vivaldi Browser a try and so far I really like it

After Mozilla’s wrongheaded announcement that they are giving up their whole plug in architecture for Chrome Style plug ins, I had been up in the air about what browser I want to use in the future. Sure Chrome is fast, but I hate that it is Google and everything you do is basically going through Google, which is the second reason I prefer Firefox, and though it was time to try some other options. Now I don’t like Safari much even with it’s newer features, and I never was a big Opera fan, especially of late, but on that count there is something newer, Vivaldi.

Vivaldi is a new browser from one of the founders of Opera that focuses on Power User features and customization and it has built in Tree Style Plug ins.

As you can see, Tree Style Tabs are on the left or right so they don’t take up precious vertical browsing space. I used to always use Tab Mix Plus to have multiple tab rows, but that takes up a lot of your vertical browsing space, and Tree Style seems a much more elegant solution on todays computers with wide screen displays.

So far it is a pretty impressive browser. It will import your Firefox Bookmarks, though it’s drag and drop bookmarks feature seems a little funky as it seems to reverse order of dragged folders. It has Sync across computings (or will soon), an adaptive interface that changes color based on the site you are on, it will have an e-mail client built in, and it is very fast.

It uses Opera and Chrome style plug ins, but only a handful are implemented as of yet, but this is a technology preview after all.

So far I am pretty impressed, and plan on continuing to use it, and when Firefox loses all the plug ins that I love, I just might have a replacement that is pretty darn good.

Mozilla Firfox is dumping it’s plug ins, moving to chrome style extensions

Ars Technica reports that Mozilla is dumping it’s plug ins in favor of Chrome Style Extensions. This will mean a more modern browser which is less likely to crash, but it means no more extensions that can deeply change the browser.

And it is it’s powerful plugin style that is why I have stuck with Mozilla even when Chrome was faster, so this might mean the end of me sticking with Mozilla. I use quite a few Moxilla extensions ever day, like Tab Mix Plus and download them all, and if they are gone, there goes my support and use of Mozilla. I personally have always been willing to have a little less stability to keep Mozillas awesome plug in support, so I think this is an awful idea!

Honestly I am going to give Vivaldi a try, it is a new browser for power users from one of the founders of the Opera browser. With Mozilla removing it’s most powerful features, a customizable alternative based on the same webkit engine as Chrome sounds like a great idea! ArsTechnica has a good look at it.