this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2025
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See also: http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/
And: https://thebestmotherfucking.website/
Both of which are vastly better.
See also: https://evenbettermotherfucking.website/
The key idea remains though. Text on a page, fast. No objections with (gasp) colours, if the author would like to add some.
I prefer the original. The "better" one had a bit of a lag (only a fraction of a second, but in this context that's important) loading and the "best" one has the same lag and unreadable colours.
The original is terrible. It works ok on a phone, but on a wide computer screen it takes up the full width, which is terrible for readability.
If you don't like the colours, the "Best" lets you toggle between light mode and dark mode, and toggle between lower and higher contrast. (i.e., between black on white, dark grey on light grey, light grey on dark grey, or white on black)
I exist btw
Although these websites are still doable.
The kind I absolutely loathe are the ones which, if I make the window width smaller (because the website is not using the space any way), the text in the website further reduces with exact proportion.
At that point, I consider if what I am reading is actually worth clicking the "Reader Mode" button or should I just
Ctrl+WOK, I was on my phone. Just checked on my desktop and agree the original could do with some margins. I stand behind the rest of what I said - the default colours for the "best" are awful - the black black and red red is really garish. If I didn't notice the dark/light mode switch and contrast adjustment does it really matter if they were there or not? There is also way to much information on the "best" one - if I'm going to a web site cold, with no expectation at all of what you might find, I'm not going to sit there and read that much text - I need a gentle introduction, that may lead somewhere.
I actually really like the black black. And they didn't use red red (assuming that term is supposed to mean FF0000); it's quite a dull red, which I find works quite well. I prefer the high contrast mode though, with white white on black black, rather than slightly lower-contrast light grey text. I'm told it's apparently evidence-based to use the lower-contrast version, but it doesn't appeal to me.
Though I will say I intensely dislike the use of underline styling on "WRONG". Underline, on the web, has universally come to be a signal of a hyperlink, and should almost never be used otherwise. It also uses some much nicer colours for both unclicked and visited hyperlinks.
I tend to use proper black on proper white too, specially on a laptop monitor of mine, that makes it look specially good.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder :-)
What's the difference between 1 and 2? And 3's colors hurt my eyes, and flimmers while scrolling (though, color weirdness may come from DarkReader)
"7 fucking [CSS] declarations" adjusting the margins, line height, font size, etc.
The most important difference between 1 and 2 is, IMO, the width limiter. You can actually read the source yourself, it's extremely simple hand-written HTML & (inline) CSS.
max-width:650px;stops you needing to crane your head. It also has slightly lower contrast, which I'm told is supposedly better for the eyes according to some studies, but personally I don't really like as much, which is why "Best" is my favourite, since it has a little button to toggle between light mode and dark mode, or between lower and maximum contrast.