Google Testing Dark Mode Feature On Desktop Search: Report

Google is reportedly testing the dark mode feature on its desktop search results. Late last month, Google brought improvements to its dark mode on Chrome browsers, expected to be rolled out soon to Windows 10 and macOS.

In its report, 9to5Google noticed that the company is testing a dark theme for desktop search. In this feature, the white background has been replaced with a dark grey hue, while Google’s colourful logo has been replaced by white lettering.

The look matches the dark mode version of Google’s search app on mobile, that has been available since May 2020. Notably, the report claimed the dark mode is not enabled on the Google.com homepage, which is odd, but would likely change when the feature goes live.

Dark mode on Google’s desktop search currently appears to be available to only a small number of users. One Reddit user who has seen it said the dark mode just randomly turned on by itself, and it reverted back to light mode shortly after. Strangely, the same user says that the dark mode did not come with any sort of toggle button, meaning he was unable to turn it off while it was active.

Earlier in November, a report suggested that a commit was made by Google engineers on the Chromium Gerrit that detailed the improvements coming to Chrome’s dark mode. The search giant is said to be updating WebUIs to bring a complete dark mode experience, with scrollbars appearing in grey colour, according to the commit.

The upcoming enhancements will allow Chrome to apply a dark theme to additional elements including scrollbars. At present, scrollbars don’t show any changes when you switch from the light mode to a dark one. The update is already provided for testing through the Chrome Canary channel. It can be tested by adding –enable-features=WebUIDarkMode,CSSColorSchemeUARendering \ –force-dark-mode to the command line.