[callahad]

That's a legitimate complaint. The text was anti-aliased in the first image, but it was only done on a whole-pixel basis. Adding a background color apparently convinces chrome to switch to subpixel antialiasing.

Whole pixel anti-aliasing looks bad and is inconsistent: both with other parts of Chrome, and with the rest of the broader operating system.

[joshuacc]

Perhaps this a Mac-only issue? In Vista and Windows 7 Chrome seems to use subpixel antialiasing. See here: http://screensnapr.com/v/nSW3Zz.png