I’ve found myself stuck in many situations where my laptop screen is too bright for my eyes, and yet the brightness is as low as it can go. Up until recently I’ve tried to work around it, including wearing sunglasses at the computer (tip: that doesn’t really help.)

Then, I discovered a utility called PangoBright. While it cannot call your neighbor or help you hack into the FBI’s private files, it does one thing very well, and that is making your screen darker than its lowest setting. It’s a cinch to install, starts up in less than a second, and takes up very little space on your hard drive.

There are some annoying visual artifacts though: portions of your screen will become undimmed when you perform certain tasks, such as switching windows. And since the dimmer directly affects the display and not the backlight, your screen will start losing color intensity at the lower settings. Other than that, the program is simple to use and I recommend it for anyone who suffers from SOBS (Screen Over-Brightness Syndrome.)

Grab it

Link: http://www.pangobright.com/

Platforms: Windows only