Light/Dark Switch – per Tab

Switch any tab between the website's own light and dark design with one click – real colour schemes, no inverted colours.

Light/Dark Switch switches a tab to light or dark with one click. The result is the same as changing the appearance setting of your operating system or browser, but only for that one tab. To be clear up front: this extension does not invert colours, does not put a filter over the page and does not recalculate colours. It shows the light or dark design the website itself provides, with the colours, images and logos its designers made for it. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHY A REAL SWITCH BEATS INVERTING ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Many "dark mode" extensions flip or recalculate a page's colours. That is quick, but causes typical problems: • Photos and background images look like negatives or get "corrected" after the fact. • Logos, graphics and brand colours are no longer right. • Contrast looks dull or noisy, because the page was never designed for those colours. Modern websites don't need that. They often already have two fully designed versions, one light and one dark. Which one you see is decided by the browser through the "prefers-color-scheme" setting, which normally follows your operating system. Light/Dark Switch works exactly there. It changes this setting for the selected tab. The website sees "this visitor wants dark" (or light) and shows its own matching design. If the site uses a different background image for dark mode, for example a night sky instead of a daytime photo, you get that image. Not an inverted daytime photo. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ HOW TO USE IT ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • Click the toolbar icon: the current tab switches between light and dark, starting from the design you are currently seeing. • The tab remembers your choice across reloads and navigation, including other websites in the same tab. • Every tab is independent. Open a page light in one tab and dark in another, for example to compare both versions. • Right-click the icon for a menu: – Use system setting for this tab – Force light mode for this tab – Force dark mode for this tab • Keyboard shortcut: Alt+Shift+D (change it at chrome://extensions/shortcuts). • The icon shows the state: half light, half dark means "follows system", the sun means "light forced", the moon means "dark forced". • When the tab is closed, its setting is deleted automatically. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHAT EXACTLY IS SWITCHED ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ The extension handles all common ways websites switch between light and dark: • CSS media queries (@media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) or light), including nested in @supports, @layer, @container or loaded via @import. Colours, spacing, shadows and background images change exactly as the website intends. • Stylesheets from other domains, such as a CDN. Their light/dark rules are applied too. • Image variants: <picture> elements with <source media="(prefers-color-scheme: dark)">. The dark or light image the website provides is loaded. • color-scheme and the CSS function light-dark(): form fields, scrollbars and default browser colours adapt as well, if the website supports both schemes. • <meta name="color-scheme">. • Themes switched by JavaScript (window.matchMedia). The website receives the chosen mode and is notified immediately when you switch, so many sites change without reloading. • Embedded frames (iframes) in the same tab are switched as well. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHO IS IT FOR? ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • Anyone who uses a light system theme during the day but prefers reading certain sites in dark, or the other way round. • Web developers, designers and agencies: check a site's light and dark mode quickly, without changing the operating system or opening developer tools every time. Two tabs side by side show both versions at once. • Editors and clients who need to approve how a page looks in both modes. • Presentations where a website should be shown light or dark on purpose, regardless of the device. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ GOOD TO KNOW ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • The extension does not invent a design. If a website has no dark mode of its own, it stays unchanged. That is intentional: no automatically discoloured pages, no broken images. The icon's tooltip tells you when this is the case. • Some websites have their own light/dark toggle and save your choice there. That site setting then takes priority, just as it would over the system setting. • Extensions are not allowed to run on internal Chrome pages (chrome://…) or in the Chrome Web Store, so switching is not available there. • Tabs that were already open before installing are included automatically on the first click. • A few special cases are not switched: colour rules inside the Shadow DOM of individual web components and media queries inside external SVG files. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ PRIVACY ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • No data collection, no tracking, no ads, no analytics. • No data is sent to the developer or any third party. • The only thing stored is whether a tab should be light or dark, locally in the browser's session storage. It is deleted when the tab or browser is closed. • Stylesheets from other domains are fetched again without cookies when needed. It is the same file your browser already loads for the page. • No remote code: everything the extension runs is included in the reviewed package. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHY ACCESS TO "ALL WEBSITES"? ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ To work on every website, the extension has to be active there from the very start of page loading. Only then does the website see the chosen mode from the beginning. The extension does not read or store page content. It only adjusts the light/dark preference the website itself asks for. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ IN SHORT ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ One click, and the tab behaves as if you had set your system to light or dark. You see the website's real design with its own images instead of inverted colours. Made by WEB NOMADS, Winterthur, Switzerland – www.web-nomads.ch