> I have to note that light themes give me migraines, so I’m stuck with dark.

I've had that, too, especially when Windows 10 came out, and I was forced to use it. The full-on white, on a high-contrast monitor, was a literally painful experience.

However, as others, I much prefer having the same lightness everywhere. I hate switching from a dark background terminal / editor to a light background webpage, so I set out to mitigate this somehow.

So, I've started using off-white backgrounds when I use light mode. Solarized is a bit too orange for my taste, but many other schemes are available. I, personally, use Base16 Equilibrium (both light and dark).

I'm not saying you did, but I think some people set the brightness control of their monitor very high (or never adjust it), and then use things like dark mode to reduce the brightness -- rather than turn down the brightness directly.

I think "dark mode" can make this worse, as it often 'pops' best with a very high brightness, which is even more blinding when running a non-dark mode app.

Yes, I've seen that, too. However, I usually set my monitors quite low and tend to have some minimal ambient light. I only use the computer in complete darkness when watching a movie or similar. But Windows' pure black on a sea of pure white was still painful.

But I think the reason for setting the monitors to a high brightness, which I've sometimes done at work, is the awful quality of the panels. Setting them brighter makes colors pop, as you say, even in light mode.

My work laptop is one such offender, with darker hues basically indistinguishable at low brightness. However, the screen is shitty all the way, and max brightness isn't all that bright...

Dark Reader is an extension available on most browsers. It has a nice community that supports conversion to dark mode for most web pages. It has worked fine for me. I use Tampermonkey to pick up the slack where Dark Reader is inadequate. Like you, switching is worse even than light mode. I migrated to completely dark.

Does it work "directly", meaning without the flash of light while it figures it should apply dark mode?

I use Stylus to apply a dark skin to some sites, like HN, and sometimes, I get a flash of brightness which is very jarring in the dark.

There is still a brief flash occasionally. It doesn’t bother me in the same way that looking at a white background does (meaning I don’t get headaches), but it definitely happens.

> I have to note that light themes give me migraines, so I’m stuck with dark.

Isn't the fact you get migraines the issue to solve, rather than the color scheme?

Most monitors these days are way too bright, especially for the amount of ambient light coming into the room. I try to get a bunch of light into my office and it is still barely close enough for this monitor. Combine that with displays getting bigger and bigger and it becomes more understandable how it can aggravate these conditions.

Dark mode fixes my problem, and I prefer dark mode aesthetically. I have no reason to do anything differently (unless there is meat to the parent reply, which is why I’m asking for a legitimate source).