Their experiments started in 2021 and the change was made in 2025? This makes me think AI writing code for us will only speed things up so much.
Better text rendering in Chromium-based browsers on Windows
31–40 of 133 posts
Re: Better text rendering in Chromium-based browsers on Windows
#32That's really great news. I always wondered why text rendering in Chrome looked so much worse than Firefox.
Is it my impression or text rendering on Windows is just worse than on other platforms?
It's worse. Windows aggressively alters the shape and overall character of fonts to perform anti-aliasing, making them appear sharper on low-DPI displays.
Linux is a goofy with this too, but still looks better than Windows. macOS handles it best on high-DPI displays, but because subpixel anti-aliasing is no longer used, fonts can be a little blurry on low-DPI displays.
Re: Better text rendering in Chromium-based browsers on Windows
#33It would be great if we could also go ahead and fix subpixel anti-aliasing for OLED screens. People have been been trying for years to get Microsoft's attention about this issue. [1] The subpixel layout of OLED screens is different than the the traditional layout, so text ends up looking pretty bad. Patching ClearType would be the first step to fixing this issue. I'm surprised that none of the display manufacturers h…
They should just ditch ClearType and use grayscale AA like Acrobat used to have. PPI is high enough on modern displays that the reduction in resolution won't matter.
The linked issue points out that grayscale AA has color fringing on some of the subpixel layouts. It's not obvious to me how one would fix it though, it seems like a deficiency built-in to panels with weird subpixel layouts and the subpixel layouts are a compromise chosen to achieve (fake?) higher PPI
Re: Better text rendering in Chromium-based browsers on Windows
#34I feel like the before/after picture is a prank. I can’t tell a difference, at least looking at it on my iPad.
https://imgsli.com/MzQ4OTEw A before/after image slider. Sadly, not pixel perfect, but a small upgrade for comparison UX.
Re: Better text rendering in Chromium-based browsers on Windows
#35That's really great news. I always wondered why text rendering in Chrome looked so much worse than Firefox.
Is it my impression or text rendering on Windows is just worse than on other platforms?
It's partly a matter of taste, I know people who prefer it. But historically Apple has paid the most attention to high-quality text rendering and Windows' approach has been... utilitarian, with stuff like ClearType mostly optimized for 'crispness' and detail at the expense of actually looking good consistently, IMO.
Re: Better text rendering in Chromium-based browsers on Windows
#36Chromium can't render fonts at all after they got rid of GDI rendering. Just compare Verdana 12pt in Word/LibreOffice and Chrome, they're not seriously trying to tell me that's the correct font? The letters don't even look the same. Left is Firefox with GDI, right is Chrome: https://i.redd.it/0fk50cgcexie1.png
Firefox does not use GDI, it used DirectWrite which is GPU accelerated.
Historically Firefox did have a GDI fallback for certain fonts specifically to address this user complaint, in order to make them look "right". I don't know when/if it was removed.
The pref name is 'gfx.font_rendering.cleartype_params.force_gdi_classic_for_families'. I believe it may have just enabled a GDI compatibility mode for DirectWrite, but I'm not sure if that uses the GDI rasterizer under the hood or not.
Re: Better text rendering in Chromium-based browsers on Windows
#37I feel like the before/after picture is a prank. I can’t tell a difference, at least looking at it on my iPad.
wild, it's obvious to me even in miniature and even more at 1x size, and I don't even have my glasses on
Re: Better text rendering in Chromium-based browsers on Windows
#38Re: Better text rendering in Chromium-based browsers on Windows
#39Windows has the worst font rendering of all time. Baby steps, I guess? The difference is marginal.
Re: Better text rendering in Chromium-based browsers on Windows
#40Chrome's font rendering issue on Windows has been known for more than a decade. Turns out all you need to do is reading proper gamma/contrast values from register.
But they didn't fix it in Skia, so most Skia based projects still have shitty font rendering on Windows.
Here is the meta issue tracker: