Text not clear enough

[lewjackson88]

I really want to use Vivaldi as my main stay browser, but there's just one thing that is bugging me but I have a feeling it's not something that has a solution; the text is too blurry and in some cases hard to read. My work monitor is 1080p but it's a relatively small size, and this blurring/anti-aliasing of text makes some websites hard to read in comparison to Firefox which is the only browser I've used that doesn't do this to the text (so I assume Chromium is to blame).

If there is a way to make the text even a bit sharper I would be grateful for the solution.

[lamarca]

@lewjackson88 What text? From all webpages the Vivaldi UI.? Ever tried change the current Theme Alt + P >> Themes.

Edited: In case of website, please provide the URL.

[lewjackson88]

It's how text is rendering on the webpages and UI. See below some examples:

Vivaldi's home page on Vivaldi:

On Firefox:

Part of my work CRM on Vivaldi:

On Firefox:

I'm on Ubuntu right now, but this is the same on my Windows 10 PC. The text also seems to be this way on Chrome though, so I think the issue is likely to be how Chromium renders text?

[Komposten]

My Vivaldi seems to render it (or at least some parts) a little bit crisper, but not quite matching your Firefox:

[Hadden89]

@lewjackson88 Check older threads, there are various things which could help with this.
Sadly, I'm seeing this too (not everywhere), but I'm unsure if is a chromium update issue, or my fallback gpu (gt610.. r7 recently died, it seems).
win10.

[g_bartsch]

@lewjackson88 I'm not sure if this will help you but I like this extension:

[Pesala]

@lewjackson88 Not all web pages, but a good number of them support Vivaldi's Reader View..

Try reading the Team Blog in Reader View. It can be enabled using the icon in the URL field (if it's not there, the page does not support it), or from the Page Actions button in the Status Bar.

The Reader View can be customised to suit your preferences. Using Theme colours lets you adjust the background colour by editing your theme.

[lamarca]

@lewjackson88 said in Text not clear enough:

so I think the issue is likely to be how Chromium renders text?

The issue might lies on your OS.

[lewjackson88]

@g_bartsch Thank you for that, it does improve it slightly.

@lamarca I use both Windows 10 and Ubuntu. The issue is the same on both unfortunately but my desktop PC has a larger monitor so it's not so bad. I've done some further testing now and it is must be how Chromium renders text as Chrome, Vivaldi and Opera look identical. I do love Vivaldi's features more than this thing bugs me so it's not a complete deal breaker. If the text rendering (if possible from Vivaldi's end) could be as sharp as Firefox's then that would awesome though!

[g_bartsch]

@lewjackson88 said in Text not clear enough:

Thank you for that, it does improve it slightly.

I'm glad it helps a bit. I know I need it.

[Ayespy]

@lewjackson88 It could happen, but it's not likely to be a priority. As it stands, all text rendering is passed only through the Chromium engine (Blink) and is then shown as just part of the page. Even the Vivaldi UI is rendered by Blink as I understand it, essentially, as a page layer.

To improve font rendering would require that fonts no longer be rendered by Blink, but rather by a discreet Vivaldi process, that would have to be written from scratch. So that could happen, but there are a lot of projects ahead of it.

[Hadden89]

@ayespy said in Text not clear enough:

To improve font rendering would require that fonts no longer be rendered by Blink, but rather by a discreet Vivaldi process

And written to work well with three different OSes and different font handling. And three types of GPUs (nvidia/intel/amd). Really not easy.

[lewjackson88]

Just to clarify this I've not found a solution other than to use a different browser. It's a real shame because Vivaldi's UI, speed and power-user tuned features are excellent but the Chromium text rendering makes me go back to Firefox. Of all browsers too Edge has the best text rendering which is interesting.

Below you can see a screenshot of text rendered in Vivaldi - Firefox - Edge - Chrome respectively:

Maybe some people prefer that text rendering, but for me it's just not clear enough and I read information on websites far more than I use the UI. If anyone has any 'fixes' for this that would be greatly appreciated, @g_bartsch thanks for the extension too but it only seems to have a mild difference.

[Pesala]

@lewjackson88 Did you try the suggestion that I offered earlier. Reader View is well suited to text heavy pages (if the site supports it). www.change.org does support it. The background can be changed by editing your theme.

[Hadden89]

@lewjackson88 Usually, these thing are tried:

1. Try to change Vivaldi fonts/size;
2. smooth text extensions;
3. make a profile for Vivaldi in GPU settings and trying to change something (anti aliasing off could help);
4. this flag chrome://flags/#lcd-text-aa on enabled;
5. an extreme solution could be a tool as Mactype. You can try some of its profile to see if this will solve the issue: on some apps is evident -- on some other less (it replace cleartype when on).

Everything seems to be started when chromium enforced directwrite/phased out GDI (ok, it's old) removing a flag.
Some chromium had patch for it, but I'm unsure if it will work for vivaldi (as it is more a separate branch than a fork) and could mess with non-windows systems which usually handle this a little better.

[lewjackson88]

@Pesala Thanks for the suggestion. I like the reader view as it takes away all the ads but this is a feature Firefox also has now.

@Hadden89 I've been using the Font Enhancer @g_bartsch recommended. It's improved them but still not great.

I like Vivaldi a lot, and I mean a lot. When I first posted this thread I was getting by but have found myself getting frustrated after long periods of time and heading back to Firefox. It's bittersweet because I know it's not the fault of the Vivaldi devs, so hopefully in time the text rendering in the Chromium engine is improved.