If Google Chrome users can already add a dark mode to the web browser using one of the many themes available in the Chrome Web Store, Chrome is finally getting native dark mode support on Windows 10. The feature is now available in the freshly released version 74 of the web browser, though a Google community manager explained that it’s currently available for a small number of users and will roll out gradually (via The Verge).
If you belong to the limited pool of Chrome 74 users who already have access to this new dark mode, the web browser should automatically enable if the system-wide dark mode has been turned on in the Windows 10 Settings app. For those of you who can’t wait for the feature to be generally available, Tom Warren from The Verge shared today a useful workaround that will just do the trick.
To force dark mode on Google Chrome version 74, you’ll need to do a right-click on the app shortcut, open the properties and then add “ force-dark-mode” at the end of the Target field, as seen below.
Once you do that change, the web browser should automatically switch to dark mode the next time you open it, and the result looks quite similar to a Chrome window opened in Incognito mode. Google previously brought native dark mode support for Chrome on macOS mojave in the version 73 of the browser, and it’s nice to see the Windows version finally catching up.
Chrome remains the most popular web browser on Windows PCs, but Microsoft will try to challenge Google with its new Chromium-based Edge Insider browser. The Dev and Canary channels of the new browser both support dark mode on Windows 10, but as of this writing this is still one of the many setting hidden in the edge://flags menu. You can learn more about how to enable it on this page.
