Microsoft which is keen on bringing accessibility features from Classic Edge to Chromium has brought the support for High Contrast Mode to Canary versions of Chrome and Chromium Edge on Windows, here is how you can test the feature on Windows 10.
After moving to Chromium for Edge browser, Microsoft apart from adding new features and porting Classic Edge features, the company also wants to bring Caret browsing and High Contrast mode support natively to Chromium Edge. FYI, Google Chrome makes these features available in the browser in the form of extensions on Chrome Web Store.
Microsoft makes a valid argument that features offered via extensions may not be possible to use in an enterprise environment where there will be restrictions imposed on installing them. Edge team contributed to accessibility features in Chromium and brought and enabled Caret browsing recently in Canary without need to rely on the flag.
Now they’ve added support for Hight Contrast mode to Chromium on Windows behind a flag named “Forced Colors”. The flag is now available in the latest Microsoft Edge Canary 79.0.305.0 (but not in Edge Dev 79.0.302.0.) where Chrome Canary has received the flag a few days back.
To enable High Contrast feature for Chrome and Chromium Edge on Windows 10
1. Ensure both browsers are using the latest Canary version, visit about:flags page separately
2. Search for “forced” and for highlighted “Forced Colors “flags, which provides a description of turns on “forced colors mode for web content”, select “Enabled”
3. Restart the browser
4. Now with Chrome Canary and Edge Canary open on Windows 10, (note: Windows 8 and Windows 7 also has the feature built-in), click on Start > Settings
5. Ease of Access > High contrast, under “Use high contrast”, toggle button to “Turn on high contrast”
Wait for Windows 10 to apply the changes, visit a website to notice High contrast mode which inverts the page colors, working. The feature is useful for vision-impaired users.
Note: Caret Browsing is still not available in-development versions of Chrome.