Comments on: Safari Gave Me Blurred Vision

By: alex

alex — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:14:48 +0000

I have been using Macs for a year and 3 months and I still prefer windows cleartype font rendering.

By: David McGuigan

David McGuigan — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 08:50:22 +0000

I have perfectish vision. Doctors won’t give me glasses, even when I say that I think they’ll make me look smarter.

I can’t stand ClearType (even after I got excited about the sensationalist claims that they’d improve my reading speeds 3x over). I also can’t stand Mac text. I’ve gotta go Windows, with ClearType off, to enjoy life.

Note: I can stand well-aliased text in Fireworks.

By: Safari « Michael Lauer’s Weblog

Safari « Michael Lauer’s Weblog — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 20:44:31 +0000

[...] I don’t much like the blurry eyestrain-inducing font rendering. I’m pretty late to the party here but I’ll pile on [...]

By: Gary

Gary — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 17:46:22 +0000

This article does a good job of explaining why:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/06/12.html

By: Reggy

Reggy — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 16:32:36 +0000

I mainly use Windows, and much prefer Cleartype to the Mac font smoothing, as seen on Windows Safari. It’s just a lot crisper to my tired eyes. I think there’s a lot of personal preference though.

Reg

By: bluezirconium

bluezirconium — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 23:20:41 +0000

I tried some modifictions - first turn font smoothing to LIGHT, then increase font size and then choose fonts with wide spacing as default. Lucida Console 24 and Bitstream Vera Sans Mono 24. Have not tried it on many websites - I guess I will need to go back to a smaller font for most sites.

By: bluezirconium

bluezirconium — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 22:55:26 +0000

your eyes are clever tools, but you have to trust how they feel and not kid yourself. The fuzzy in a small type is hard - I don’t know why!!!! I know that sans serif fonts such as times new roman are faster to read and helps you to comprehend better, compared to an arial size - I guess unconsciously the increased originality of each letter helps. Your brain and eyes together are even more tricky if I slpel the wrdos in fnnuy oderr aarepptnlty you can raed it aynawy - I am not so sure that always works, but have seen other people write things that way and as long as you have the first and last letter in the normal place - your brain mixes them back to make sense!!! How amazing!

By: Brownspank

Brownspank — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 03:51:51 +0000

Aaron: Huh, i didn't think of it that way. Turns out there are 3 sides to this coin. :) I hate jaggies in my text, so much so that I even love the way fonts are rendered in the newer Sony Ericsson phones. Looks a lot like ClearType, if you ask me, but it does the job well.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 17:31:26 +0000

I have to say I detest both Windows Blurtype and Mac text rendering.

When I first started using a Mac, I loved how smooth the text looked! However, I quickly realized that didn’t actually make it any more readable. In fact, I noticed I had to strain more to actually read things, and it was only a short while before I actually noticed my vision start to decline! Coincidence? Maybe. But I still find my eyes always most “at ease” when starring at old fashioned, jaggy, properly aliased text.

By: Brownspank

Brownspank — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 01:26:59 +0000

Guy: I don’t settle for less than native on any of my LCDs. ;) It’s nice to know that the font-smoothing situation goes both ways. Since I’ve written this article, I’ve been slowly getting used to The Ways Of Apple, so the blurry fonts aren’t as much of an issue now, especially knowing why certain companies do things in a certain way. :)