How can I disable all external CSS in a browser (such as Firefox or Chrome) for testing purposes?

General Discussions
1

How can I disable all external CSS in a browser (such as Firefox or Chrome) for testing purposes?

When using a slower internet connection, sometimes only the bare HTML is loaded without the CSS, making the page appear as raw HTML. I’ve observed this on sites like StackOverflow. I want to ensure my web page displays correctly even if the CSS files are not loaded.

I am not looking to convert external CSS to inline styles, but rather want a method to explicitly disable all CSS from the browser to check the readability and layout of my page. I know I can remove <link rel='stylesheet'> entries manually, but is there a way to chrome disable CSS or achieve this in a browser with many linked CSS files?

2

Both Chrome and Firefox offer a way to disable CSS through their developer tools.

Chrome:

  1. Open Developer Tools (F12 or right-click on the page and select “Inspect”).
  2. Go to the “Sources” tab.
  3. Under the “Page” section, find the Stylesheets folder.
  4. You can click on each CSS file and then use the “Disable” option to turn off CSS for that particular file.
  5. Alternatively, go to the “Elements” tab, right-click on the tag, and use “Edit as HTML” to remove and tags temporarily.

Firefox:

  1. Open Developer Tools (F12 or right-click on the page and select “Inspect”).
  2. Go to the “Inspector” tab.
  3. In the “Rules” pane, click the checkbox next to “Disable all styles” or uncheck individual CSS files.
3

There are browser extensions available that allow you to toggle CSS on and off. Examples include:

Chrome:

  • Web Developer extension: This extension includes an option to disable stylesheets.
  • Disable CSS extension: This extension provides a simple way to toggle CSS.

Firefox:

  • Web Developer extension: Similar to Chrome, it allows you to disable CSS.
  • Disable CSS extension: Provides an option to disable all stylesheets.

Install one of these extensions and use its interface to disable CSS as needed.

4

You can use custom user stylesheets or browser extensions to override and disable external CSS.

Chrome:

  1. Use the “Stylus” extension to create a custom stylesheet that sets all styles to default or resets them.
  2. Apply CSS rules such as * { all: unset; } to remove styles applied by external stylesheets.

Firefox:

  1. Install the “Stylus” extension.
  2. Create a new style that overrides existing CSS, such as applying * { all: unset; } or another reset style.