The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Does your browser text look like this?

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by niemassacre, Sep 2, 2007.

  1. niemassacre

    niemassacre Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    10
    Messages:
    384
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Hey guys,

    After using Mac OS and Windows together for a while, I've realized something - the text in browsers in Mac OS hurts my eyes. It seems very fuzzy and unclear. Does yours look like this?

    [​IMG]

    Has anyone else had problems viewing the text and looking at it? Or are my eyes just weak?

    EDIT: A better example:

    [​IMG]
     
    niemassacre, Sep 2, 2007
    #1
  2. Sam

    Sam Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    3,661
    Messages:
    9,249
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    205
    Yeah, I'm using Safari 3 Beta and it looks the same. You may want to try out Camino, its text rendering may be different. See if you like that.
     
    Sam, Sep 2, 2007
    #2
  3. knightingmagic

    knightingmagic Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    144
    Messages:
    1,194
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55
    Have you ever used the Cleartype feature in Windows?

    What's going on here is the 3 sub-pixels (red, green, and blue) are being used as pixels themselves to make the edges of text smoother. This has the side effect of creating a color edge to text, but the end result is the smoothness.

    Apple's sub-pixel smoothing tends to make everything bold in my opinion. That said, i've only used Windows and it took some time to let Cleartype grow on me. At first, the color edges to text was absolutely unacceptable, but over time, it was alright.

    EDIT: Yeah, this type of smoothing tends to look bad in high-contrast conditions. I'd set the font smoothing to a lighter level in Safari or whatever browser that is.
     
    knightingmagic, Sep 2, 2007
    #3
  4. niemassacre

    niemassacre Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    10
    Messages:
    384
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    I use Camino, but I checked Safari before posting this and it looked the same. I'll go see if I can change that option (where is it exactly?) and maybe that'll make it better. Thanks for the help!
     
    niemassacre, Sep 2, 2007
    #4
  5. freefisheater

    freefisheater Notebook Consultant NBR Reviewer

    Reputations:
    44
    Messages:
    189
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    freefisheater, Sep 2, 2007
    #5
  6. Sam

    Sam Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    3,661
    Messages:
    9,249
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    205
    He's been known to be a Mac basher :p. And also check out the poll that is at the end of the article. The majority of users say OS X renders font better.

    EDIT: Although I should clarify, I'm not implying he "meddled" with the results of his test in that article. I just wanted to point out also that the majority of the votes say OS X is better.
     
    Sam, Sep 2, 2007
    #6
  7. knightingmagic

    knightingmagic Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    144
    Messages:
    1,194
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55
    lol, someone claiming Mac font rendering sucks gets down voted by Mac lovers.

    Win Vista's text > Mac OS X's text > WinXP's text > Linux distros' text (free fonts suck)
     
    knightingmagic, Sep 2, 2007
    #7
  8. niemassacre

    niemassacre Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    10
    Messages:
    384
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    I turned Font Smoothing down to "Light" in the System Preferences - it does look a bit better - does anyone have any more tips as to how to get the Mac OS fonts to look more Windows-like? We can debate which is actually better, but, for me at least, the Mac fonts just hurt my eyes :(

    EDIT: actually, to be honest, I can't see much of a difference now that I changed the Font Smoothing settings - I even tried flipping between Light and Strong, and nothing seemed to change...is there anything else I can do?
     
    niemassacre, Sep 2, 2007
    #8
  9. TicTac1980

    TicTac1980 Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    8
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Is there a browser for the Mac that won't show "blurry" fonts? Is it the same on Firefox?
     
    TicTac1980, Sep 3, 2007
    #9
  10. knightingmagic

    knightingmagic Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    144
    Messages:
    1,194
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55
    Try turning font smoothing off.
     
    knightingmagic, Sep 3, 2007
    #10
  11. niemassacre

    niemassacre Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    10
    Messages:
    384
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    I didn't see an option for that - just changing it between light, medium and strong (as well as automatic or standard) - is it in the System Preferences?
     
    niemassacre, Sep 3, 2007
    #11
  12. Eallan

    Eallan Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    258
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Is that a Bioshock quote?
     
    Eallan, Sep 3, 2007
    #12
  13. windowsrookie

    windowsrookie Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    11
    Messages:
    198
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    You can turn off font smoothing for fonts smaller than whatever you select in the appearance preferences.
     
    windowsrookie, Sep 3, 2007
    #13