The 6 Best Dark Mode Extensions for Chrome (That Won't Break Sites)

No dark mode extension works perfectly on every site, because every site is built differently. Here are the options worth trying, with what each does well. Disclosure: the first is made by Patrick Bushe, who runs this site.

#1. Modern Dark Mode by Patrick Bushe

A free, lightweight extension that darkens every site with a CSS filter.

• What it does well: keeps images, videos and SVGs in their normal colors, and has Brightness, Contrast, Sepia / Warmth and Grayscale sliders, a schedule, per-site exclusions and an Alt+Shift+D shortcut.
• Privacy: no analytics and no network requests; its settings stay in your browser.
• The trade-offs: its sliders apply to every site rather than per site, and it doesn't detect sites that are already dark, so exclude those.

See Modern Dark Mode.

#2. Dark Reader

The best-known free, open-source dark mode extension.

• What it does well: several dark mode methods, per-site settings, and fixes for many popular sites contributed by its users.
• The trade-off: its default Dynamic mode does more work per page than a simple filter; switch to Filter mode if a site feels slow.

#3. Chrome's Auto Dark Mode flag

An experimental setting at chrome://flags/#enable-force-dark that darkens web pages with no extension at all.

• The trade-off: it applies to every site with no exceptions, results vary, and it can change or disappear in any update.

#4. Websites' own dark themes

Many sites, including GitHub, Wikipedia and YouTube, have dark themes in their settings or follow your system's dark mode. They look best, because the site designed them.

• The trade-off: only some sites have one.

#5. Chrome's Reading mode

For articles, Reading mode in Chrome's side panel shows the text with a dark color theme, leaving the page itself unchanged.

• The trade-off: it shows the article text only, not the rest of the site.

The verdict: Use a site's own dark theme where it has one, Modern Dark Mode or Dark Reader for the rest, and exclude already-dark sites from whichever extension you choose.

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