Dark mode for webpages in Safari?

Software
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Which extension work well for dark mode in Safari? I see there Noir and Dark Reader? I used to use Dark Reader on Chrome and was pretty reliable, for the most part.

Your suggestions?

PS: Will be using this on macOS Safari as well.

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Noir is great (and highly recommended). The Mac version is a separate purchase.

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+1 for Noir. You can set different settings per domain also.

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Safari is my primary browser, and I use Noir. I find its implementation of dark mode (and other themes) to be more elegant than Dark Readerā€™s (which I use with Firefox).

Noir is a native app and feels at home in Safari and on iOS/macOS in general. iCloud Sync and Shortcuts support are both features that Dark Reader lacks.

Dark Reader feels like a more one-size-fits-all, brute force option. Its image filter isnā€™t great, often missing images and inverting their colour values. I find this bothersome because I prefer a low-contrast dark mode at night (Noirā€™s image filter feels much more reliable). Thereā€™s also no iCloud Sync or support for Shortcuts.

Both extensions allow you to dim images, although Noir allows you to customize how much you want to dim them, whereas Dark Reader only has a toggle setting.

Both can also detect dark themes on websites, but I havenā€™t tested this feature in Dark Reader. Noirā€™s is good, but not greatā€“it occasionally gets mixed up and fails to activate on a light website, and the devā€™s recommendation is to use the ā€œignore siteā€™s dark modeā€ on a case-by-case basis. I assume itā€™s dependent on how the website is coded, so itā€™s hard to say whether one app would be better than the other.

imo, if Safari is your primary browser, Noir is the clear choice. iCloud Sync alone is enough to decide it, but the small touches also make for a more pleasant experience. I donā€™t use the Shortcuts or Focus Filters myself, but I could see them being quite useful for someone who does a lot of screen sharing to avoid confusing their audience.

Dark Reader is fine for when I use Firefox, since thatā€™s almost always on my desktop to access the same handful of websites that donā€™t play well with Safari.

My current Safari setup also uses StopTheMadness Pro/StopTheFonts to ditch web fonts, and 1Blocker/Wipr to block ads and trackers. They all work nicely together with Noir.

eta: I recently upgraded from StopTheMadness to StopTheMadness Pro.

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Thanks for mentioning StopTheFonts. Iā€™m giving it a try. Iā€™ve long been a fan of StopTheMadness.

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nice. I guess I need to pay for Noir, twice - iOS and macOS. Same with stopthemaddness?

Is this the case with all extensions lol. using safari comes at a cost?

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Iā€™m guessing, but I assume none of these add-on tools can deal with Safari View Controller in iOS/iPadOS throwing up a blank white canvas even for sites that provide their own dark mode?

It does my head in that Apple havenā€™t addressed this obvious flaw. The OS is in dark mode and the apps (e.g. NetNewsWire) are honouring this, but when I tap a link to open in-app, BOOM! Searchlight white across the majority of the screen.

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Jeff Johnson (developer of the StopTheMadness) recently released StopTheMadness Pro, which is the version of the app that will be updated going forward. Itā€™s a single-purchase, universal app that unlocks across all platforms. He has a number of blog posts on his personal site explaining how frustrating the experience of putting apps on the App Store is, and how itā€™s been difficult for him to offer upgrade paths to customers who bought bought iOS and macOS versions of STM because of the way Apple handles things: StopTheMadness Pro postmortem: crApp Store still crappy.

Personally, I donā€™t at all mind paying a relatively small price for independently-developed utility apps such as these. There arenā€™t many developers getting rich off Safari extensions, given they target a fraction of a fraction of web users. There are also concerns about how to market on the App Storeā€”apps that are offered free for demo purposes and unlock features with an in-app purchase tend to get review-bombed by angry customers who feel theyā€™ve been duped, whereas requiring an initial purchase preserves the quality of reviews.

I balked at the price of StopTheMadness/Pro initially, but it fills a niche that no other app does, and the dev has built a nice little ecosystem of other utilities that work very well with STM (including StopTheFonts and StopTheScripts), if youā€™re interested in that kind of thing. Iā€™ve started purchasing apps a lot more liberally to try them out, and simply refunding them if I donā€™t think theyā€™re worth it. Appleā€™s refund process has a lot of friction by design, but Iā€™ve never been denied.

Hereā€™s a feature rundown for STM Pro: StopTheMadness Pro launches as a powerful Safari extension to help you ā€˜take back your web browserā€™ - 9to5Mac.

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