Highly anticipated: It's been rumored through the grapevine that Chrome OS will be releasing a dark mode in the near future, and evidence of the new feature was recently spotted in the operating system's experimental Canary channel. It is apparently not prime-time ready yet, but bleeding-edge users can still experiment with it as long as they don't mind the occasional bug.

Chrome OS may finally see the release of a dark mode. Evidence of the new feature was spotted in the Flags menus of Chrome's experimental Canary channel. Reports show it is still unstable, though, and it isn't clear when it will be released in a stable state.

Dark mode is a feature that Chrome OS users have long-sought for its benefits on eye strain and readability. Most users also appreciate the chance to switch up their UI with a refreshing new look, and Windows- and Mac-users have had this luxury for some time now.

Rumors pointing towards a dark mode were passed around last month, and it seems they finally bore fruit, though not in a channel that is technically reliable.

Android Central reports that you can test the feature by going into the Flags menu. To do this, you simply open the Chrome browser on your Chromebook and paste the URL:


chrome://flags/#enable-force-dark and chrome://flags/#enable-webui-dark-mode

Some have noted that this does not always work, but if you like to be on the bleeding edge of new features, perhaps you can give it a go. But be aware that this isn't finalized and there are still bugs to be smooshed.

As of last month, Chrome OS holds just over 6% of market share in the US, compared with Mac OS's 27.6% and 62.9% for Windows. User-friendly features like these will be necessary if Google wants to remain relevant in the OS-space outside of Android, and they might need to start leading the pack on similar novel features if they're going to rope in new users.