> - Why can’t I choose the colors of web sites and applications?

For what it's worth, Firefox lets you edit them:

http://kb.mozillazine.org/index.php?title=UserContent.css&pr...

Not terribly easily, but you can do it for any site. For example I fixed a GitHub bug for myself: https://github.com/github/feedback/discussions/8098#discussi...

There is a world of styles out there: https://userstyles.world/

Have you seen the Stylus extension? I have several default styles configured in Stylus. This improves things on the desktop quite a bit. I wish it existed on mobile.

Actually, you can use it on Android, but it does require using Firefox Nightly[1].

That does come with downsides such as Nightly being less stable and installing extensions requiring some extra setup, so it isn't the best choice for everyone. But I myself am using Stylus (which works perfectly fine) and some other not officially supported WebExtensions on mobile this way and can recommend it if you don't mind the downsides.

[1]: https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/09/29/expanded-extensio...

I used to use Stylus several years ago. Didn't it sell out to another company and start tracking and selling user's data? Or am I thinking of another similar add-on?

That was Stylish.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stylish

Right! Thank you for the clarification.

Another useful extension is Dark Background And Light Text https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dark-backgrou... . It's a one-button toggle to turn most text and backgrounds into colors you prefer. Great when you run across one of these accursed low-contrast sites.

Yes! Been using DB&LT for years on Firefox. It also mostly put an end to the glaring bright pages. You control the Default colors for all sites (set in Global Prefs) with five options; all are retained (the options used for already configured pages are listed in GP).

How does it compare to Dark Reader?

Dunno, I've never used that one. I may give it a shot, thanks!

You can also select your own fonts and prevent pages from overriding them. Preferences → Fonts → Advanced → untick “Allow pages to choose their own fonts, instead of your selections above”. I did this a few months ago, and I’ve seen no breakage outside icon fonts, and apparently icon fonts are deader than I thought they were—DuckDuckGo has a few unimportant ones, and beyond that the only ones I’ve seen are Google’s Material Icons font, which uses a ligation technique that’s supposed to make things better but actually makes them vastly worse.

Over all, I’m much pleased by the results of forcing Equity/Concourse/Triplicate.

> For what it's worth, Firefox lets you edit them

Would it work with a... opionated website with a hundreds of !important all over the CSS?

Is it possible to use userContent.css on mobile?

Given the partitioning of device storage, my understanding is that it's either not possible. I'm not sure the browser itself even supports userContent.css.

Unrelated, but as European why do you need driver's license, if you don't drive, isn't there some equivalent to ID card in US not requiring any test?

Many states will issue "non-driver ID cards" (examples below), which are typically cheaper than a drivers license, but which still involve the same level of proving who you are before you can get one (involving showing passport/birth certificate/bills/whatever)

Because these are relatively uncommon, they will lead to extra scrutiny and hassle in many situations (buying alcohol, showing ID at airport security, etc).

The US does not have federal level ID cards, although the federal government has used funding for state programs as a cudgel to make states comply with standards for how they verify who you are before issuing you an ID ("Real ID").

Examples of non-driver IDs:

- New York: https://dmv.ny.gov/non-driver-id-card

- Massachusetts: https://www.mass.gov/how-to/apply-for-a-massachusetts-identi...

- District of Columbia: https://dmv.dc.gov/service/non-driver-identification-cards

Now I start to understand why Americans consider voter ID excluding. Because IDs themselves are excluding in America because of God Automobile.

I think the extent to which "Americans consider voter ID excluding" is highly politicized and debatable.

ID is required for many things. Off the top of my head I've had to show ID to get into bars or buy alcohol, rent a car, drive, doctor visit, picking up kids at school, R rated movies, at the bank, opening a crypto account, opening a Robinhood account, when I need to prove my identity at work - and probably many other times. You need an ID for many random things in life and somehow that's not exclusionary.

I've just googled to see what percentage of American adults have ID and I saw percentages in the high 90's. Though, these survey results are a bit confused with some surveys excluding expired results or being strictly "driver's licenses" versus any government photo ID or counting people who "don't know" or decline to answer as not having ID.

I haven't voted in a long time, but the last time I did - I think they just asked me what my name is and I didn't show any kind of ID. They then check if the name you gave is on their list of voters. If it is, you get a ballot, and they check that name off the list. If it's not you get a provisional ballot and who knows what happens to that.

All this is to say that the politicians who believe voter ID would reduce their share of the vote consider it exclusionary. Politicians who believe voter ID would increase their share of the vote do not.

> I haven't voted in a long time, but the last time I did - I think they just asked me what my name is and I didn't show any kind of ID. They then check if the name you gave is on their list of voters. If it is, you get a ballot, and they check that name off the list. If it's not you get a provisional ballot and who knows what happens to that.

This various by region, but the procedure where I live is that you are registered to vote in a district. When you go to vote you provide your name and, if necessary to disambiguate, an address. The poll worker finds you and checks you off. Then you vote. If two people try to use the same registration, this catches that.

> All this is to say that the politicians who believe voter ID would reduce their share of the vote consider it exclusionary. Politicians who believe voter ID would increase their share of the vote do not.

The voter ID debate does concern whose ox is being gored. The party whose constituents are poorer and less mobile is the party whose voting share will go down with voter ID laws, depending on the law, because acquiring the ID allowed by the law may take travel and expense which is prohibitive to their voters. The argument for ID is that it will prevent in-person voter fraud. The argument against it is that the fraud it will prevent is negligible, the number of people it will disenfranchise is not negligible, and that the actual incidents of voter fraud, or election fraud, that should be prevented are not in-person voter fraud.

TLDR; voter ID laws will decrease participation and the laws can be gamed, by choosing acceptable forms of ID and whatnot, to selectively decrease one party or the other's voter base. Also, there is no evidence that this prevents fraudulent votes swaying elections and there is evidence that it has partisan bias, which will sway elections. A solution: issue a federal ID delivered to voters at no expense. This is not on the table.

Isn't passport (sort of) federal level ID card?

Thanks for examples.

A passport works, but it a) doesn't list a home address, which is sometimes necessary and b) is too bulky to conveniently carry around.

When you renew your passport, you can also get a passport card for an extra $30 or something. They're only good for land/sea crossings (no flights) from US to Canada, Mexico, but you can put it in your wallet.

The downside is again that it's non-standard form of ID, but it is a photo ID and may be useful

Depends on the size of you pockets

When I was a teenager my vision was better. It has degraded as I’ve aged.

I do still technically pass the vision test, but I don’t think it tests for impairment from astigmatism very well.

It’s not rational, but I think a big part of keeping my license is anxiety. It’s really challenging to get around in America without driving. Knowing that my license is still valid makes me feel less trapped.

There's absolutely no reason you should forgo the optionality inherent in a driver's license so long as you continue to pass the test.

People need a ride to the hospital all the time, if the state says your vision is up to the task of doing it, why not be available for emergencies? There's no downside.

> isn't there some equivalent to ID card in US not requiring any test?

Most states have something like this. Typically you fill out some forms and pay a fee to get a “State ID”. Just be prepared for people to give you shit about it occasionally when ID’d.

If you’ve already gotten your drivers license in the past though, I don’t see any good reasons to get a new ID vs just renewing the driver license.

> Almost all technology of any kind selects in favor of aesthetics over equal access.

I don't think accessibility should mean that you have to forgoe aesthetics or compactness for those users that don't need the contrast or extra space or whatever so these don't need to be opposed. Instead, provide options for users that do need them and/or integrate with OS or third-party accessibility tools where possible.

> Why can’t I choose the colors of web sites and applications?

I can choose my applications colors under KDE and pretty much everything "native" (Qt and GTK <= 3 apps) will respect those settings. This seems more of a problem in the proprietary ecosystem where each company wants to insist on their own branding.

For websites there are prefers-contrast [0] and prefers-color-scheme [1] media queries that in theory provide some user configurability but they are a) barely exposed to users b) not implemented by most websites and c) very limited. It would be nice if there was a standard way for CSS to refer to system fonts and colors - then again that would also be yet another privacy leak that WILL be used for tracking :|

> Why can’t I change the default system font for my iPhone or my Mac?

You can in other operating systems. Apple has always been about aesthetics first so this this shouldn't really be suprising - not that that excuses Apple from not providing these configuration options.

> Why can’t I change the font size in modern video games?

This has actually become more common for CRPGs now. I guess most less text-heavy games still don't bother. OTOH most new-ish games scale text with the screen resolution. Older games might have fixed absolute font sizes but if they are old enough they also have a fixed (or limited set of) supported resolutions and you need to scale up the whole thing anyway.

> Why do most desktop applications fall of the edge of the screen below 1080p?

Windows is really bad about having fixed-size dialogs everywhere. This is another of those things I like about Qt-based applications - they have always had flexible layouts unless the developer deliberately breaks that.

[0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/pref... [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/pref...