TechSpot Dark Mode is now available to everyone

[Julio Franco]

We started 2020 with a plan to launch new site features that go beyond content. While most of our efforts still go into delivering timely stories and unique content for you to enjoy, internally we've identified useful additions to make your TechSpot experience better.

To quickly name a few, the Product Finder section now includes price tracking on most products. This past month we silently updated our site code to make it faster and more lightweight, especially on mobile, with more performance improvements still in the pipeline. Since last year, our software downloads are put through a more methodical scanning process before files are made available to users (more about this soon).

Also, we introduced TechSpot Elite subscriptions, for those who'd like to contribute to our team and get an amazing ad-free experience plus a few other perks. We're grateful for everyone who has signed up so far and know we invest back every single contribution into more reviews and articles.

As part of that announcement we launched a dark mode beta only to subscribers. I'm glad to report dark mode is now available to everyone. Login to your TechSpot account and select it from the user menu as shown below. The experience will carry on to the forums and mobile pages, too. This page works as a live preview of what you can expect.

If you haven't signed up for a free TechSpot user account yet, well, you should! The process takes literally 30 seconds and will allow you participate in the comments, follow discussions, access the new dark mode and other site features.

Plus, by default we show less ads to logged in users since we count on you visiting TechSpot more often, sharing our stories, and engaging more with our community, so we try to give back in this way. Hope you enjoy dark mode and as always your feedback is welcome and appreciated.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/85876-techspot-dark-mode-now-available-everyone.html

 

[QuantumPhysics]

I prefer regular mode.

 

[winjer]

Finally a dark mode. Nice.

 

[Achaios]

I dislike darkness, anything that's dark and that includes darkish webpages.

For the folks that did not read Julio's text like I did, dark mode is turned off by default. You can turn it on from your user menu.

 

[DaveBG]

Finally, it was hurting my eyes a lot before!

 

[pcnthuziast]

Awesome, thanks!

 

[Experimentongod]

This will be nice to combat eye floaters, I was using a Chrome extension for dark mode but now I can disable it for this site.

 

[Plutoisaplanet]

Very nice, I appreciate dark mode and the other changes!

One thing I beg of you to fix though: a lot of times when reading on Safari for mobile, the page will jump around as ads are rotated. I think this has to do with replacing fullscreen ads with square shaped ads (if that makes sense). It makes it hard to read because I have to find my place again. Could you do something about this? Maybe only replace ads with the same type of ad or only replace ads if they’re in the current viewport?

 

[Lionvibez]

Just switched now on my desktop will see how it goes.

I know on my S10 which is a OLED screen it will save me some battery life so thank you

 

[0dium]

Very nice, I appreciate dark mode and the other changes!

One thing I beg of you to fix though: a lot of times when reading on Safari for mobile, the page will jump around as ads are rotated. I think this has to do with replacing fullscreen ads with square shaped ads (if that makes sense). It makes it hard to read because I have to find my place again. Could you do something about this? Maybe only replace ads with the same type of ad or only replace ads if they’re in the current viewport?

It happens in chrome on Android too.so annoying.

 

[Uncle Al]

LOVE IT! Makes a lot easier on the old eyes!

 

[m4a4]

It's been nice to have dark mode early these last few months. I always use dark mode when I can.

 

[Julio Franco]

One thing I beg of you to fix though: a lot of times when reading on Safari for mobile, the page will jump around as ads are rotated. I think this has to do with replacing fullscreen ads with square shaped ads (if that makes sense). It makes it hard to read because I have to find my place again. Could you do something about this? Maybe only replace ads with the same type of ad or only replace ads if they’re in the current viewport?

I hear you. That’s one of the things we’ve been working on. Hopefully we’ll sort that out in the next week or two.

 

[SirDigby]

I love Dark Mode

 

[javierkaiser]

Thank you very much!

 

[Snowy]

My eyes are thanking you. =)

 

[tacobravo]

Finally! I wish every site had a dark mode

 

[Mandiyu90]

Thanks!

 

[wiyosaya]

It happens in chrome on Android too.so annoying.

And Firefox/Waterfox.

I like the dark mode.

It seems that if you switch PCs, there the dark mode has not quite stuck. I turned it on in my account on another PC, and I then logged in later on another PC. While the articles were in dark mode, the main page was not.

Is this supposed to be attached to the account or to the PC through cookies? I would prefer that it is attached to the account because there are only a few sites that I allow other than session cookies.
Thanks.

 

[zamroni111]

This will be nice to combat eye floaters, I was using a Chrome extension for dark mode but now I can disable it for this site.

In chrome desktop and mobile, you can enable this flag to force dark mode:
#enable-force-dark

 

[ZedRM]

Have to be logged in to use it? It's not available to everyone then...
TwitchTV for example has the option to use dark mode even if you're not logged in.

 

[texasrattler]

And Firefox/Waterfox.

I like the dark mode.

It seems that if you switch PCs, there the dark mode has not quite stuck. I turned it on in my account on another PC, and I then logged in later on another PC. While the articles were in dark mode, the main page was not.

Is this supposed to be attached to the account or to the PC through cookies? I would prefer that it is attached to the account because there are only a few sites that I allow other than session cookies.
Thanks.

I enabled it on my phone first, now my tablet has it on to. So it looks to be account based.

 

[texasrattler]

Have to be logged in to use it? It's not available to everyone then...
TwitchTV for example has the option to use dark mode even if you're not logged in.

It is available to everyone. Having a free account shouldnt matter. They didn't hide the fact either, it was stated you just need a free account.
Maybe one day they will have that option but this is the way they choose to implement dark mode. Personally I dont have a issue how it is, granted I've used this site for a long time. But if you like the site, why not have a account?

 

[TheFootPerson]

I appreciate dark mode, especially if I wanted to read something quickly on my phone. But then, thanks to wireless screen mirroring, it's no longer an issue. Techspot works great on the ps4 browser by the way.

 

[netman]

Good move Spot...!