Show escaped bash color codes in less #linux

My ls command colors directories and files according to their type and permissions:

But when the window is too small to fit the content I pipe the result into less:

Which cannot correctly parse the escape code from ls and turn them into color. To fix that add -r to the less command:

Notes:

My l alias is gls -F -G --color --group-directories-first -lah (gls is GNU ls)

You can alias less=less -r if you want this to be the default behavior for less.