ugly web fonts in Google Chrome (but fine in Firefox)

[free.thought]

When I open the same web pages with Chrome and Firefox, for example http://mathoverflow.net,  math in Chrome looks significantly worse than in Firefox. 

The "About MathJax" message is exactly the same in both browsers: MathJax v2.1, using TeX web fonts, Chrome  v22.0.1229.94 (resp. Firefox v15.0.1) --- woff or otf fonts. 

But: the fonts in Chrome look bolded, uneven, somewhat jagged, sometimes pretty hard to make out, generally pretty ugly I would say. The fonts in Firefox look thin, not bold, and nice, just what I always expect from MathJax.

I am on Windows 7. I do not have any local STIX or MathJax fonts installed. Chrome's fonts were fine until a few months ago. The change appeared when Chrome auto-updated to a new version. (Unfortunately, I don't remember which. Maybe v.21 but maybe several versions before that, like v.18).

I observed the same ugly web math fonts in MathJax using Safari for Windows 1.5 years ago but I figured it was a Safari or Safari on Windows issue. Maybe it is the WebKit browser issue?

Is anybody else aware of the issue and knows how to fix it?

[free.thought]

Here are screenshots. 

[Davide P. Cervone]

Chrome has a number of bugs related to antialiasing fonts, particularly web fonts in Windows.  See

http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/list?can=2&q=label%3aWebKit-WebFonts&sort=-stars&colspec=ID%20Pri%20Stars%20Mstone%20ReleaseBlock%20OS%20Area%20Feature%20Status%20Owner%20Summary&cells=tiles

for a list of them.  

This may be related to the issue listed here:

http://meta.math.stackexchange.com/questions/3911/unusually-bold-latex-now-occurring-on-sidebar-and-comments

and this discussion:

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/mathjax-users/DbNV18LcIGQ

You are right that the change to Chrome in version 18 (which seemed to be a particularly buggy version) is when this first appeared.

Davide

<chrome.png><firefox.png>

[jamal...@gmail.com]

can youi plzzzzzzzz resend that

On Monday, October 29, 2012 9:04:43 AM UTC-4, free.thought wrote:

[mic...@indycals.net]

Google is aware of it, but they aren't interested in fixing it as it's been around for at least four years. A shame that a tech giant like Google can't create a simple web browser that displays fonts correctly. Even Microsoft isn't that incompetent. 

[rob.davi...@gmail.com]

Adding the following the html tag property to your CSS should fix the issue: (adjust the value to suit your requirements)

html {

-webkit-text-stroke: 0.25px;

}

[nessa....@gmail.com]

Thanks for this, its not a 100% solution, but definitely improves the way the font is displayed

[seres...@googlemail.com]

Thanks very much! No ideal solution, but a great improvement!!
A pity really that Google (or others developing 'spin-offs' of Chrome) apparently haven't been able to solve this issue.. (am posting using FF, Comodo Dragon installed (based on Chrome)).

[agnes.gl...@gmail.com]

Its almost funny that the google browser can't handle googles own webfonts.

[keram...@gmail.com]

not almost funny at all... it's bloody hysterical and ridiculous! :)

and totally not fun for those of us who are expected to deliver pretty websites that are cross-browser beautiful.

google is like that evil older brother... gives us luscious candy with one hand, and smacks us to the ground with the other.

:(