Rendering of fonts is not working nicely

[jeichhorn]

It would be great if this could be improved

[helmers]

Hi there, if you could give some examples of websites where this is happening I might be able to tell you what is happening.

It would also be good to know which version of macOS and Safari you are using.

[jeichhorn]

@helmers For example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivaldi_(web_browser)
See attached screenshot with Safari on the left and Vivaldi on the right side

[jeichhorn]

@helmers It looks like the rendering has changed in Chrome 72 (From left to right: Vivaldi 2.2.1388.37, Chrome 72.0.3626.81, Opera 58.0.3135.53 and Safari 12.0.3 (14606.4.5)) all on macOS 10.14.3 (18D42):

Before updating to Chrome 72 the font rendering was like it was in Vivaldi. Hopefully the rendering will automatically be improved when updating the newer Chromium version.

[jeichhorn]

Fixed in new Vivaldi version 2.3.1440.41

[Elbe]

For me this never was a problem before. But now after updating to 2.3.1440.41 I face these rendering issues as well.

[helmers]

With macOS 10.14 there is no longer subpixel font smoothing on the platform. There is however still the Font Smoothing setting under System Settings › General.

Checking this (and restarting Vivaldi) will lead to thicker font weights.

Is this what you are seeing?

[Elbe]

Oh, you're right.
So actually if I'm activating font smoothing in the macOS settings, it looks bad. But deactivating this feature make them look good (in Vivaldi).
That's not the right behaviour, isn't it?

[helmers]

The setting used to be a toggle for subpixel font rendering. But that is no longer available in macOS. Currently, it seems to make fonts heavier—but that is not what it claims to do. It claims to toggle font smoothing. But it does not—font smoothing is always enabled.

Since it does not make sense I can't really say what the right behavior is. I do know that font rendering in Vivaldi (and other Chromium-based browsers) sometimes differ from the platform rendering.

The real solution to these issues will probably be the shift to retina displays, which will cause any rendering issues to be much less visible.

[xyzzy]

FYI, there are a few other (undocumented and unsupported) ways to fine-tune font rendering on macOS:

How to Fix Blurry Fonts in MacOS Mojave for Non-Retina Displays
http://osxdaily.com/2018/09/26/fix-blurry-thin-fonts-text-macos-mojave/