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by rhodescolossus 492 days ago
That's really great news. I always wondered why text rendering in Chrome looked so much worse than Firefox.
1 comments

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.

Also, https://tonsky.me/blog/monitors/

It is a matter of personal preference. I personally love the look when there is no hinting at all, even though this means blurriness at the pixel level. Windows prioritizes crispness. I hate that and I think it looks worse.

On the other hand, back in Mac OS X Leopard, the OS lets you adjust the level of font smoothing. I preferred the strongest level of smoothing. Many designers hate that because it is akin to faux bold. I didn't like that Apple removed it in Snow Leopard. These days it hardly matters though.

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.