Use real pure black color in web pages instead of dark gray color to save battery in dark mode without the need of heavy extension
trimechee opened this issue · comments
Hello, black color saves battery use less resources =silent dusty computer fan, I use the famous extension dark reader by setting the contrast level to the maximum so I get real dark color instead of dark gray color in web pages= battery saved, but my computer is old and dark reader consumes resources and fan no longer stops :(
a recent study shows dark reader extension consumes significant CPU resources :
https://www.tomsguide.fr/content/uploads/sites/2/2024/05/chrome-performances-extensions1.png
so I try to deactivate dark reader extension and activate dark mode and auto Dark Mode for Web Contents in chrome://flags/ but sadly I get gray color and not real black color, so I search in
https://peter.sh/experiments/chromium-command-line-switches/
and I find this command :
--dark-mode-settings
Sets dark mode settings. Format is [=],[=],... The params take either int or float values. If params are not specified, the default dark mode settings is used. Valid params are given below. "InversionAlgorithm" takes int value of DarkModeInversionAlgorithm enum. "ImagePolicy" takes int value of DarkModeImagePolicy enum. "ForegroundBrightnessThreshold" takes 0 to 255 int value. "BackgroundBrightnessThreshold" takes 0 to 255 int value. "ContrastPercent" takes -1.0 to 1.0 float value. Higher the value, more the contrast.
but I try in vain to change the settings and contrast of dark mode but I fail and I can't get the real pure full black color, our dream please is this awesome browser will add option to enable real pure black colors in web pages = no more need an extension that can add wear our old computer, thank you very much :)
first of all... you do understand that "black saves battery" only applies to oled screens, right? you say your computer is old, and the odds of an old noisy computer having an oled screen are pretty slim, considering that they are still a luxury even on high end laptops released these days.
second, amoled black doesn't save any more battery than dark gray (https://www.xda-developers.com/amoled-black-vs-gray-dark-mode/), so what you are asking wouldn't help achieve your goal even if your laptop did have an oled screen
ciancy, do you understand that the recent scientific study that I posted saying dark reader is one of the extensions in the world that consumes the most CPU power? so in any case a native black mode of Thorium will cost less resources than the dark reader extension, dark reader is good but I feel the connection can become a little slow and I feel the fans running, and I like black mode...if you say right, surprising that black mode does not save more energy, it says black mode means the pixels on the screen are off and inactive because there is black mode.... This is a fascinating subject, more testing and comparisons are needed...
@Ciancy28 first of all , you do understand based on your own article : "so it should output 0.3 nits. 4mW/nit × 0.3 nits = 1.2mW, so dark gray should only consume 1.2mW more than pure black.", "So, theoretically, dark gray consumes a negligible amount of additional power compared to using black."
we don't all live in rich USA, we don't all use renewable energies and I live in a country where the price of electricity is the highest in the world, 0.3% energy savings via black mode is a saving anyway, it doesn't matter, it's not much, and then I don't care about the amoled screen, my computer is asus i3 2017, so my screen is either an ips or lcd screen... what interests me is that is a study of black mode on this type of screen
it says "OLED saves power if pixels are turned off with true black screens. IPS actually uses the least power with a white screen when the color layer doesn't have to work. Not much of a difference overall though, i would still use dark mode to strain my eyes less at night"
but i think black mode can reduce blue light =better sleep
ciancy, do you understand that the recent scientific study that I posted saying dark reader is one of the extensions in the world that consumes the most CPU power? so in any case a native black mode of Thorium will cost less resources than the dark reader extension
That graph doesn't include the browser's native dark mode, so there's no data proving that "a native black mode of thorium will cost less resources", and the "dark reader is one of the extensions that consumes the most cpu power" part is also not true, looking at the graph, it's actually the LEAST cpu power consuming extension.
surprising that black mode does not save more energy, it says black mode means the pixels on the screen are off and inactive because there is black mode.... This is a fascinating subject, more testing and comparisons are needed...
It's not surprising and no further comparisons are needed if you understand how oled screens work... a gray pixel is barely lit, it's barely emitting any light, so there's no reason to think it would use up a significant amount of power compared to a fully turned off one, especially considering that power consumption isn't linear (a 1000 nit backlight/oled pixel will use more than double the power of a 500 nit one).
we don't all live in rich USA, we don't all use renewable energies and I live in a country where the price of electricity is the highest in the world, 0.3% energy savings via black mode is a saving anyway, it doesn't matter, it's not much
it definitely matters that it's not much, and this doesn't change no matter where you live or how much electricity costs, also you are missing a lot of context of that experiment
It's 0.3% on a a small phone, that's being run by a very efficient arm based SoC, and showing a static image (so probably close to 0% cpu usage), on a laptop with an x86 cpu doing actual work (or even at idle), you would be looking at way less savings.
btw italy isn't exactly located in the usa.
but i think black mode can reduce blue light =better sleep
not really, again, if dark screens barely use any more power compared to black ones, the same should go for the amount of blue light emitted.
dark reader has the least CPU consumption among the energy-intensive extensions, compared to other extensions, I do not criticize this extension which does a good job, the dynamic mode is demanding in energy, and I tested the browser myself with dark mode enabled in chrome flags and I activated full black color in Firefox and I compared with dark reader extension activated and I feel the difference, the fan remains silent with the native black mode of browsers....I read articles saying black mode can reduce blue light