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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-13T09:16:26+00:00

Supposing no CSS, javascript or other HTML trickery, how does the browser determine the

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Supposing no CSS, javascript or other HTML trickery, how does the browser determine the color of the text and background for selected text?

For example, standard white background (#FFFFFF or RGB=255,255,255) with black text (#000000 or RGB=0,0,0) when selected with invert the colors (i.e. black background, white text). How are other colors chosen? For example, when writing a question on this site, the right sidebar has an area “How to ask” with background #FFEFC6 and text #AE0000, which when selected become #3399FF and #FFFFFF respectively.

I would like to know how this is determined (is there an algorithm or just defaults) and is this the same across browsers?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I’d agree with Joshua that the colors come from the system, but I’d disagree about CSS, for example, CSS-Tricks:

    ::selection { background: #ffcc89; color: #222; }
::-moz-selection { background: #ffcc89; color: #222; }

    For more info, see Quirksmode on selection styles.

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