Currently, there is no way for developers to provide any custom logic from their end that can bypass Samsung Internet’s dark mode. I understand the concern you have regarding this and have forwarded it to the Samsung Internet team. However, please understand that there are a lot of users who do appreciate Samsung Internet’s dark mode, so they will try and see if there is a generic way to do this in the future.
For now, if you want your users to use your preferred color scheme, please direct them to navigate to Settings → Labs → and Select “Use website dark theme”. This action will do one of the following:
If the website supports dark mode, it will be applied (Samsung Internet’s algorithm is not enabled).
If the website does not support dark mode, then it will be seen in light mode.
forcefully changing website styles gives me some really bad IE11 flashbacks. As I do understand that people like to use the dark mode I also strongly recommend giving trust back to the developers and designers of websites.
Forcefully changing colors on websites might degrade contrast and can potentially decrease accessibility on websites. As an EU residing developer I and my customers will face serious legal issues if this continues to happen (please have a look into the European Accessibility Act). Public services need to fulfill these accessibility constraints already from next year on.
Please be advised that a generic solution will only work when there are no edge cases, and we all know that there are always edge cases. So please encourage your Samsung internet team to not enforce colors when developers are already providing a dark color scheme. It is not in the browsers responsibility to enforce some colors on websites. If users prefer a dark color scheme and a website does not properly provide one, these users will most likely not be coming back. No need for Samsung to dictate this on a website.
As for me, I will have to encourage users to switch the browser before using my web projects as i cannot guarantee that they will be fully accessible through Samsung Internet. Please stop being an Internet Explorer and start following the standards.
Is there any update on this from the Samsung Internet Team?
Your solution works but we can’t ask every user to turn off the dark mode to scan QR Code.
Our QR Codes are not working, the browser is adding a yellow filter which is making QR unscannable, can you please advise on how we can override the filters added by the Samsung Internet Browser?
With Internet Explorer disappearing, we all thought we could finally breathe some air. Unfortunately, frustration is boiling over with me and the whole frontend development community due to these uncontrollable color schemes.
I shall not repeat what my colleagues said above, but developers and designers are at their wit’s end. Despite pouring time and effort into crafting seamless dark mode experiences, Samsung Internet insists on playing by its own rules.
I have clients who paid for and expected a consistent dark mode, they are unhappy and blame me for delivering unfinished/bad work. Websites relying on dark aesthetics are bleeding conversions, the financial impact is real. Immediate action of the Samsung Internet development team is a necessity!
Hi! I just download Samsung browser to my pixel to test what things look like. I expect if I go out of my way to create dark mode CSS that it should be respected by the browser and adhere to modern CSS standards. My site is incomprehensible with your dark mode implementation and lack of work arounds. Please fix.
Forcefully changing a website design is just plain wrong. And I don’t think I need to rehash all the arguments above. For me the biggest one is that colour contrast is completely off, and sometimes results in completely illegible designs. Just check out NY Times Wordle, where the real dark mode is a nice yellow colour for misplaced letters, but a dark orange almost red in Samsung browser. I don’t understand how this is not your absolute top priority to fix since your smart phones make up a BIG part of the internet’s users.
Let’s say you do not want to change this, Samsung. Then, if anything, please add a way to detect if Samsung Dark mode gets applied. Preferably in CSS, for instance by adding a dataset to the html element. Or by adding some variable on the document or window object. (I’m just spitballing).
We simply need to be able to detect the Samsung Internet dark mode, so we can toggle certain elements to make things readable again.
This must be one of the most absurd behaviors I have ever seen across the web. As a web accessibility tester and web developer, I am amazed at who could come up with such a dim-witted idea. The dark mode feature, which is on most Samsung devices, is really nice, but y’all need to take it off the Samsung’s browser because the forced CSS generated by the dark mode goes against the principles of most accessibility referential. How? Imagine a web developer creating a website by handpicking specific colors so that all the text and other components respect the expected contrast ratios defined by accessibility referential like WCAG and RGAA. However, due to Samsung’s marvelous idea of forcing its own CSS onto the website, all the contrasted colors turn out to be non-contrasted. I mean, the whole objective of a dark mode is to help people who can’t perceive or are susceptible to certain colors, right? Then how come this feature goes against most accessibility referential like WCAG / RGAA and may affect people with disabilities such as color blindness ? A serious review should me made on this subject and come up with a fix!
I am pleased to share with everyone that from Samsung Internet v24.0.6.15 you can specify the supported color schemes for the page via the color-scheme meta tag or CSS property: <meta name=”color-scheme” content=”light dark”>
Additionally, the Samsung Internet team is improving their algorithm to adaptively “respect” the Web developers’ dark colors if defined like above, as per CSS Color Adjustment Module Level 1 (w3.org),
and if not defined, apply the browser’s algorithm. Hopefully, this will provide an enhanced experience to users and also give more options to the developers.
This is a “work in progress” under the same experimental flag, for upcoming versions like 25.0, 26.0, or above to be released later this year.
That blog post is from December 2020, and in Samsung Internet v24.0.7.1 that meta tag appears to have no effect in preventing Samsung Internet’s dark mode from changing the colors on the webpage. In fact, you failed to notice that the person who originally made this post in 2022 already pointed to that blog and said it wasn’t working.
I’ve designed a dark theme for my site and use media queries and JavaScript to ensure the user receives the dark theme if their device requests it, and Samsung Internet still forces changes on top of that and makes everything look much worse, even darkening some images and text that were not designed to be darkened, making the site less accessible! What’s the point in developers making a dark theme and using meta tags and media queries if you make a browser that ignores our effort? Because of Samsung Internet ruining my site’s accessibility, I’m at the point where I’m forced to implement an alert on my site to advise users to switch to a different browser to even see everything properly; it’s like we learned nothing from the Internet Explorer days.
I think there has been some confusion. Please check the points below:
In Samsung Internet Version 24.0.7, force dark mode is the default setting for Website rendering.
The experimental flag was not working in an earlier version, which we ensured it works fine in 24.0.7. So, if developers were to switch on the experimental flag “Enable Prefer Media Query Over Force Dark” then they would see that force dark algorithm respects the color scheme meta tag mentioned in the blog Dark Mode in Samsung Internet | Samsung Developer.
In version 25.0, the flag is now changed/renamed to “Enable Adaptive Force Dark”, which has improvements to “Enable Prefer Media Query Over Force Dark” and still respects the color-scheme meta tag. Force dark algorithm then dynamically detects and runs only where the meta tag isn’t defined.
So, you need to turn the experimental flag on from your side to view your website. To do that, simply type “internet://flags” in the URL bar of Samsung Internet, scroll down, and turn on “Enable Prefer Media Query Over Force Dark”.
For users who want to see website-defined theme colors, they just have to navigate to Samsung Internet → Settings → Labs → “Use website dark theme”.
For users who want to see website-defined theme colors, they just have to navigate to Samsung Internet → Settings → Labs → “Use website dark theme”.
You see, this is not OK. No one knows this, they just assume things are as they should. Again, Samsung does not know better than the developers of the site. Respect the authors of the web sites’ intents.
We’ll be sure to forward any EU Accessibility Act fines to you when your forced dark mode makes us non compliant.
This is one of the most absurd behavior I have encountered
In what world is it a good idea to assume any background color have to be changed ? What if something have to be white regardless of the color scheme ?
This decision is so wrong by design that I’m not sure I believe it completely
Is there a way for website to know that Samsung Internet has activated it’s ‘Dark Reader’ mode? Standard dark mode detection JS like window.matchMedia && window.matchMedia('(prefers-color-scheme: dark)').matches doesn’t work for Samsung Internet in this case.
