More on the Font-Rendering Battle
02.23.08 | Filed under Software.
I wrote an article about 10 months ago, in which I went on a sort-of rant about how I thought Internet Explorer 7 undoubtedly trumped Firefox when it came to rendering fonts clearly and properly. I want to say today that I was wrong in making such statements; I was too inexperienced in the field of browser wars and rendering to make an unbiased and accurate comparison. In the end it was one of the people who commented that set me straight: the winner was far to close to call once Firefox had ClearType turned on.
Basically, Internet Explorer and Firefox both render fonts excellently when MS ClearType is in the ON position - so excellently that it is rather pointless to try to argue for one of these browser’s domination over the other.
I will say though that IE and Firefox are far and above the quality of font rendering that Safari for Windows shows. See for yourself - it’s terrible in comparison with any other browser on the Windows platform that works with Cleartype. Something’s wrong there, and I hope Apple is smart enough to make it a high priority to take action to improve it. Until then, IE7 will remain my main browser.
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