We just reported on Google having created and rolled out a dark theme for Chrome Remote Desktop today, your Google My Activity page earlier this week, and Google News before that. Heck, even the Chrome OS recovery screen went dark! The company began A/B testing a dark theme for Search back in December, but it disappeared almost as soon as it popped up. Now, it looks as though those tests are becoming more widespread as several users have said on Reddit that they too are seeing it appear for them, albeit briefly.
This new dark theme isn’t perfect, however, and there are several UI elements that still don’t adhere to its rules. Still, it’s a welcome change that should be rolling out universally before long – we’ll just have to be patient for a while. The above Search dark theme replaces colorful icons and text with plain white versions of them instead, (see the logo and the Sign-in button at the top) but I’m of the personal opinion that dark themes with lots of colorful icons look super nice, so I hope we’ll at least get to see that at some point in more places than just Google Support and such.
The faster we get a universal dark mode for all of Chrome, the faster we can stop relying on extensions like Dark Reader Dark and Dark Web – Dark Theme for Chrome. Extensions like these are great, but overall, the news surrounding extensions themselves hasn’t been great lately. Luckily, Google seems to be aggressively pushing its efforts to complete the transition and we’re sure to see even more of its sites in the news for this sooner rather than later.
Ideally, all of these dark mode websites that Google is rolling out would automatically switch when you toggle Dark Mode on for your Chromebook. On other operating systems though, we imagine there will be individual toggles or perhaps a Chrome-specific toggle in the browser’s settings to flip everything at once. Initially, Google created a universal dark theme for all of the web using a flag that would allow you to force it on all web content, but it was less than ideal due to it not being handcrafted around each individual site’s specific design elements. For the time being, they seem to be opting for a dark theme toggle at the bottom right of Google Support, Chrome Remote Desktop, and other sites that will switch you back and forth with one click.
I know that dark mode isn’t exactly the top priority in many people’s eyes, but I do think that it’s a necessary evolution of the modern web. Which Google service or website would you like to see receive a dark theme next? Let us know in the comments!
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.