Which web browser has the best font renderer?

[Regeneration]

How big is the monitor? Resolution? How far away are you sitting from it?

I'm struggling to see any differences at 2560x1440 / 27" at arm's length (I'm tall, lol) away...

2K, 27-inch, arm + 5cm. Can see text is a bit colored and needs antialiasing on Chrome. FF is fine.

 

[silentbogo]

I'm not even sure how low should you go in resolution in order to see it.
Even at work, on my cheapest-of-the-cheap FullHD BenQ monitor I don't see any aliasing artifacts at all. I'll try it on my old Thinkpad T520 w/ 768p LCD tomorrow, but I kinda doubt it'll be that bad or noticeable.

If anything, for any chromium-based browser you need to tweak ClearType settings. Also, if I remember correctly, some older hardware does not support accelerated 2D canvas, which may cause this type of weird stuff along with bad rendering of vector objects(like SVG images, or outlines in CSS etc.) Try setting it to "disabled" in chrome://flags.

 

[EarthDog]

2K, 27-inch, arm + 5cm. Can see text is a bit colored and needs antialiasing on Chrome. FF is fine.

2K = 2048x1080... I assume you mean 2560x1440 - same as I? Yeah, even with a calibrated IPS panel (Acer Predator) and clean glasses (20/20) I don't see a difference if I have the same webpages up......

 

[Bill_Bright]

I had Office 2010 for years, then 2013 but upgraded to 2016 when support ended for previous versions. I don't see any issues in any of my Word docs, Excel spreadsheets, or in Outlook. They all look great to me.

 

[ThrashZone]

The blur should not be that visible. The rendering as I understand it is done by the browser, and at least in Firefox there are multiple settings controlling font rendering. And if you zoom in the text, the rendering should automatically adjust the font smoothing so that it's not glaringly obvious.

Hi,
Just saying browsers aren't miracle workers on bad graphic they can only do so much

 

[micropage7]

2K, 27-inch, arm + 5cm. Can see text is a bit colored and needs antialiasing on Chrome. FF is fine.

what about
Disable 'Accelerated 2D canvas' under chrome://flags

 

[windwhirl]

I had Office 2010 for years, then 2013 but upgraded to 2016 when support ended for previous versions. I don't see any issues in any of my Word docs, Excel spreadsheets, or in Outlook. They all look great to me.

Then maybe it's just me being picky about it

 

[Regeneration]

I'm not even sure how low should you go in resolution in order to see it.
Even at work, on my cheapest-of-the-cheap FullHD BenQ monitor I don't see any aliasing artifacts at all. I'll try it on my old Thinkpad T520 w/ 768p LCD tomorrow, but I kinda doubt it'll be that bad or noticeable.

If anything, for any chromium-based browser you need to tweak ClearType settings. Also, if I remember correctly, some older hardware does not support accelerated 2D canvas, which may cause this type of weird stuff along with bad rendering of vector objects(like SVG images, or outlines in CSS etc.) Try setting it to "disabled" in chrome://flags.

what about
Disable 'Accelerated 2D canvas' under chrome://flags

Fonts on Chrome look shit to me even with 2D canvas or without it. So ugly, makes me want to register a fake account.

So far, FF with GDI looks a lot better. Except the letter "l", still looks bad, but probably because of the zoom.

 

[budget_Optiplex]

I browse on a 24" Samsung 1366x768 monitor with 125% view scaling. I agree that to my tired eyes font rendering in any Chromium based browser (I use Iridium) is not as legible as font rendering in Firefox/Waterfox. I'd like to be able to use Iridium as my primary browser as it performs very well, but because of the rendering differences I simply can't get away from Waterfox.

 

[ERazer]

"guys tell me which one is best for my eyesight"

 

[EarthDog]

I browse on a 24" Samsung 1366x768 monitor with 125% view scaling.

...and you're blaming the browser?

My guy, your DPI is low and your scaling is turned up...can't make pixels from nothing.

 

[Regeneration]

"guys tell me which one is best for my eyesight"

Eyesight has nothing to do with it.

Some browsers have blurry, aliased, distorted fonts unless zoomed or adjusted to high dpi. Chrome uses Chroma fonts.

12 browsers and all use the same single web rendering engine.

...and you're blaming the browser?

Yes. Fonts look a lot better on IE and FF.

 

[windwhirl]

...and you're blaming the browser?

My guy, your DPI is low and your scaling is turned up...can't make pixels from nothing.

True that, expected DPI is normally 96 and any 768p display up to 16" either matches or exceeds that pixel density. 1366x768 at 24" is 65 DPI, way lower.

Eyesight has nothing to do with it.

Some browsers have blurry, aliased, distorted fonts unless zoomed or adjusted to high dpi. Chrome uses Chroma fonts.

12 browsers and all use the same single web rendering engine.



Yes. Fonts look a lot better on IE and FF.

Regarding Chrome, I think it uses the system settings for ClearType? Maybe paying a visit to the ClearType Tuner could help...

 

[Regeneration]

ClearType tuner just seems to adjust brightness and boldness of the text. Looks best in its default values.

 

[EarthDog]

Yes. Fonts look a lot better on IE and FF.

I mean you can only polish a turd so much, right? That guy is running a 24" 720p monitor with the scaling raised up... it's going to look like garbage no matter what. Just saying his example is pretty poor considering.

I wish I had your superior eyesight to see wth you are talking about.

 

[jitendrad]

FIREFOX !!!

 

[budget_Optiplex]

...and you're blaming the browser?

My guy, your DPI is low and your scaling is turned up...can't make pixels from nothing.

I love my 24" 1366x768 monitor! It doesn't look like garbage at all, and everything is large and easy to read for my bad eyes. I stepped down from a high end IPS 1080p monitor because no matter what I did I couldn't read text on it very well and I'd end up with eyestrain, to my current Samsung solution and wouldn't trade it for anything. I actually have two spares new in box as well.

So unless you have bad eyes and have had to choose between computing and not computing because of monitor and text legibility, please don't knock my solution. The only drawback I have found is of course I have to do a lot more scrolling......but its a tradeoff I can deal with to be able to see what I'm reading.

The other benefit is at such low resolution I can enjoy newer games even on my low end GPU and to me they look just fine.


Note the screenshot doesn't look as good as what I actually see as far as font smoothness/clarity.........

 

[windwhirl]

Well, to each their own, I guess. Sight is not the same for everyone, after all.

 

[EarthDog]

I love my 24" 1366x768 monitor! It doesn't look like garbage at all, and everything is large and easy to read for my bad eyes.

like windwhirl said, depends on the eyes I guess. Im 20/20 with glasses but even without, I can see a clear difference in between my 2560x1440 monitor and my son's 1080p.

But where you're at, the low resolution, large display, and increased scaling are a significant part of the issue. That isn't so much a function of the browser.

 

[budget_Optiplex]

Here is what I see using Iridium browser which is Chromium based. On my monitor in Iridium the fonts are washed out looking and much more translucent making them hard for me to read.

Here is what I see using Waterfox. On my monitor Waterfox displays fonts that are noticeably darker and less translucent, with better contrast so they are easy to read.

The screen captures don't quite show as much of a difference, but looking at the actual monitor these differences are much more pronounced.

Note that I have adjusted ClearType to give me the darkest and "thickest" font look. Though the ClearType tuner in Windows 10 does seem to work far better then the one in Windows 7 that I'm using. And yes, my eyes are crap even with glasses, I struggle to use a 15" laptop even with a 1366x768 screen as I can barely read the text and it's a quick way for me to end up with an eyestrain headache. Getting old sucks.

 

[Athlonite]

But I can see the fonts are a bit blurry and colored.

That's your eyes doing that it sounds like you have a mild form of Macular degeneration

as for the OP's problem I see no difference in any of those using Vivaldi

 

[biffzinker]

Text in Safari looks sharp, and easily readable. This is on the iPhone 11, and last years iPad. There use to be a Windows version available for download until Apple quit supporting it. I’m trying to remember how text looked the one time I tried it out on Windows 7.

Safari is the WebKit rendering engine same as Chrome?

 

[claes]

Text in Safari looks sharp, and easily readable. This is on the iPhone 11, and last years iPad. There use to be a Windows version available for download until Apple quit supporting it. I’m trying to remember how text looked the one time I tried it out on Windows 7.

Safari is the WebKit rendering engine same as Chrome?

Safari, iOS and MacOS handle fonts very differently (and much better than) Windows and their browser equivalents. Apple uses Quartz to render fonts.

FTT, again, encourage you all to read this. It’s old, but very little has changed.

A Closer Look At Font Rendering — Smashing Magazine

The Web font revolution that started around two years ago has brought up a topic that many of us had merrily ignored for many years: **font rendering**. The newfound freedom Web fonts are giving us brings along new challenges.

www.smashingmagazine.com

 

[Regeneration]

Text in Safari looks sharp, and easily readable. This is on the iPhone 11, and last years iPad. There use to be a Windows version available for download until Apple quit supporting it. I’m trying to remember how text looked the one time I tried it out on Windows 7.
View attachment 161625
Safari is the WebKit rendering engine same as Chrome?

Safari uses WebKit too. Fonts look nice to me. Same on Android. It's WebKit on Windows with DirectWrite that produce ugly fonts.

 

[EarthDog]

Safari, iOS and MacOS handle fonts very differently (and much better than) Windows and their browser equivalents. Apple uses Quartz to render fonts.

FTT, again, encourage you all to read this. It’s old, but very little has changed.

A Closer Look At Font Rendering — Smashing Magazine

The Web font revolution that started around two years ago has brought up a topic that many of us had merrily ignored for many years: **font rendering**. The newfound freedom Web fonts are giving us brings along new challenges.

www.smashingmagazine.com

Also, DPI on a phone screen is likely a lot higher than a PC monitor... that has a lot to do with it......

Is it me who doesn't 'get it' here? Totally confused at why people are comparing phone browsers and screens to PCs...DPI peeps... DEE PEE EYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, lol