I spend all day everyday and way too many nights looking at screens. For some cosmically ironic reason my eyes are very light sensitive. Nothing gives me a headache faster than bright white light. Over the years I’ve tried everything to reduce the strain on my peepers. I crank the brightness down as low as possible. I’ve tried every type of sunglasses, computer glasses, and monitor shade on the market. I turn off the overheads and have blackout curtains in my home office.
Dark mode has been a Godsend for people in my situation. The only problem with it is that it isn’t being deployed fast enough. All modern browsers can support dark mode (a dark background with light text), but for the effect to work the site has to be coded in a certain way. You can imagine how anxious web developers are to re-write millions upon millions of sites, pages, and tools.
Night Eye is a browser plug-in that converts almost any site into dark mode. That includes browser based applications like the WordPress editor I am using right now. There are several other dark mode browser extensions available and I tried several of them before I settled on Night Eye. One of them really slowed my browser down and another was sending way too much data to an IP in China. Here’s a friendly tech tip, always run a network sniffer after you install an extension!
Night Eye is a paid application, which I actually prefer. The last thing I need in my browser is more tracking and adds. You can choose between several yearly subscription options, or the Pro license. Run the demo of Pro mode for ninety days after which it will drop into free forever mode that will continue working on any five sites you choose. I started out with the $9.99 subscription and upgraded to the pro license after a couple of years. I’ve emailed their support a few times and they’ve always solved my problem.
It couldn’t be any easier to use. Open the extension store in whatever browser and search for Night Eye. Install it and turn it on by clicking its icon in your browser’s toolbar. That’s it. If you don’t know how to get into your browser’s extension store just head over to their site and click the matching icon on their homepage. They will send you to the right spot. There are a handful of settings you can adjust to your preferences, but you probably don’t need to. There’s also a whitelist (no pun intended) for anything you don’t want converted.
Night Eye is the Frank’s Red Hot of browser extensions, “I put that sh*t on every thing”. When I have to work on someone else’s system and open their web browser, the experience is jarring. Now if we can just convince building managers that we don’t need double forty inch tube lights in every square foot of every office drop-ceiling on Earth, I might finally be able to stop wearing sunglasses indoors. Thanks Night Eye!
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