browsers

[serenissima]

It has come to my notice that the same web page text viewed in both Firefox and MSIE appears crisper in Firefox, smoother in MSIE -- as if IE is anti-aliasing the text.

Why would it need to do that? How long has it been doing that?

Comments

[ceruleanst.livejournal.com]

It's called ClearType and it's been part of XP; it can be used by various Windows applications. It's a bit sharper for text than ordinary anti-aliasing, but not all that helpful at small type sizes. In IE you can turn it on and off with Tools> Internet Options> Advanced> Always Use ClearType For HTML. Firefox doesn't seem to have settings for it and only uses Cleartype for text larger than a certain size.

[403.livejournal.com]

I've found ClearType to be most helpful on flatscreen monitors & laptops. I seem to recall it being designed to reduce eyestrain from reading on those displays. Don't quote me on that, though.