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I notice that the text on some web pages look bad when viewed in Chrome (16.0.912.77 m) while OK with Firefox (10.0). FWIW, I'm using the Windows versions of those applications, with default settings.

As an (ironic) example, www.google.com/webfonts.

Does someone know why that is, and if something can be done about it?

Thank you.

Edit: Another example:

enter image description here

Edit: Here's how it looks in FireFox:

enter image description here

OverTheRainbow
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  • It only occurs on some web pages. XPSP3, running the latest Chrome browser. The same page looks slick on Firefox. – OverTheRainbow Feb 09 '12 at 00:05
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    I added a screenshot as viewed in Firefox. It's easier to read. How can I get Chrome to render pages the same way? – OverTheRainbow Feb 09 '12 at 01:11
  • I found most relevent links. http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Chrome/thread?tid=517027d948899922&hl=en lower DPI and zoom :-) and ClearType tuning, which can be done in XP. http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Chrome/thread?tid=072b59269fde6bf5&hl=en Other than that, just a bunch of people who realise how bad it is. Stupid things done to fix it on Web pages that just adds more junk on web pages, and CCS sheets for default fonts only. The one thing I did not see yet is the method of render?, because I might wonder if changes to GPU settings would change anything, If they use gpu – Psycogeek Feb 09 '12 at 02:01
  • All the anwers are right here on superuser http://superuser.com/questions/308135/how-can-i-improve-font-appearance-in-google-chrome (until chrome updates again) – Psycogeek Feb 09 '12 at 02:16
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    Can you upload **.PNG** screenshots. The JPG compression is not helping. – iglvzx Feb 09 '12 at 04:24
  • Thanks. I tried enabling ClearType through Control Panel > Display > Appearance > Effects, which does make that page's text look better, but it also affects all other pages, and I find the original font more readable. I'll go back to the standard way, and hope Chrome improves. Thanks everyone. – OverTheRainbow Feb 09 '12 at 09:33
  • A big blog article including fixes to this problem: [How to fix the ugly font rendering in Google Chrome](http://www.dev-metal.com/fix-ugly-font-rendering-google-chrome/) – Sliq Sep 02 '13 at 07:49

2 Answers2

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I was looking for a solution for exactly the same thing: to make chrome render better. It was horrendous compared to Firefox, IE, and safari in windows (software rendering mode in Safari renders like on a mac，but it's a bit slow).

The reason why Firefox and IE9 render well is because they use DirectWrite hardware acceleration to render the fonts.

It's been suggested to turn off the GPU acceleration in Chrome. But it doesn't work. I found a good enough solution, where the text will be rendered LEGIBLE (didn't say anything about being fully antialiased and beautiful):

REMOVE THE WOFF LINE AND SVG LINES!!!!

@font-face {
    font-family: 'SomeFont';
    src: url('../fonts/SomeFont.eot?#iefix') format('embedded-opentype'), 
         url('../fonts/SomeFont.ttf')  format('truetype');
    }

What I found was that Chrome can do TTF render better, but choose to look for WOFF files first. So you only need EOT and TTF files.

Josephus
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Chrome uses Windows for font rendering. It's far worse on the Windows 8 beta than anywhere else - enough that it almost seems to be a swipe at Google. Firefox uses its own font rendering method, which makes the browser heavier but avoids the problem.

If tuning your ClearType doesn't help, there's not much you can do.

Ironically, IE9+ has the best font rendering of any browser engine. In other words, even Microsoft refused to use their own crappy font engine when it comes to the www.

I'm not sure why Chrome hasn't put together a better solution yet.

Imperative Ideas
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  • Are you sure that's how Chrome works? It doesn't even obey [DPI settings](http://chromium.googlecode.com/issues/attachment?aid=-8089674022775224262&name=dpi.jpg&token=ZEaAkrtflEzrYX0GtNCjrPxyaoY%3A1342833267765&inline=1). – Louis Waweru Jul 21 '12 at 01:20
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    *In other words, even Microsoft refused to use their own crappy font engine when it comes to the www* IE9+ uses DirectWrite, which is Microsoft's own "font engine". – ta.speot.is Sep 23 '12 at 02:42
  • Font quality is fine in Chrome on Mac, so it must be related to OS provided font rendering. – Lea Hayes Oct 15 '12 at 15:37