Windows 7 upgrade led to loss off crispness & quality in browser text

[Quin]

Windows 7 upgrade led to loss off crispness & quality in browser text

Well, I decided to update my HP laptop from Windows Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Ultimate (both 64 bit) and in doing so my firefox and IE browsers are considerably harder to read. Twitter, Facebook, Youtube descriptions, most anything has very poor quality.

I recently came across this problem on my desktop after updating my graphics card's driver via an optional windows update (big mistake) and all I had to do was rollback the driver. For this problem, I tried updating the graphics card's driver, but it's up to date.

I hope there's an easy fix for this, I really don't know what to do. Any ideas?

 

[dsperber]

If your current font size is "normal - 100%", perhaps you might just try "medium - 125%" and see if this appeals more to you and your laptop.

Right-click on desktop, select "screen resolution", then select "make text and other items larger or smaller", and check the "medium - 125%" radio button.


Note that while this definitely will make all text characters larger and darker and appear like "they have MORE INK", it may also cause some windows drawn by application programs to potentially have truncated text or be otherwise slightly malformed. This is a long-standing issue that goes back even to WinXP (with its equivalent "small fonts (96DPI)" or "large fonts (120DPI)" settings.

If these very occasional types of minor cosmetic anomalies bother you, then I suppose "medium - 125%" is not for you. But if you can accept it, then the "MORE INK" darker, clearer, characters are definitely more readable.

Of course, you can also make things larger in both IE and Firefox with a "ZOOM - IN" (View -> Zoom) click, though you probably already knew that.

Just suggestions.

 

[Quin]

I actually tried increasing the size of the text to medium earlier, but that didn't affect the browser's text.

As for messing with the fonts of IE and mozilla, the font still appears to be very grainy and hard to read. Yesterday, when I had Vista, the font was perfect. Today, now that I have Windows 7, I'm seeing an obvious change. I doubt the font size has changed since the upgrade, so I feel as though something else is at work here.

 

[Sardonicus]

Have you tried Adjust ClearType text?
Type "adjust" in search.

 

[karlsnooks]

WIN | type Adjust performance | ENTER key | Visual Effects tab |
Adjust for best appearance radio button | OK button

WIN is the key with the Microsoft flag on top.

Ctrl and Plus key can be used to increase size of display within your browser.

Ctrl and Minus key can be used to decrease size.

 

[Quin]

It looks like that has had an effect, but after playing with it, it still looks pretty bad. In Facebook, for example, although status updates are a little clearer, now names of people are a much fatter bold.

 

[dsperber]

Just out of curiosity, can you provide the details of your laptop? Manufacturer and model please.

 

[stve]

Read the sticky http://www.sevenforums.com/browsers-mail/152094-blurry-text-ie9-firefox-4-read.html

 

[Quin]

WIN | type Adjust performance | ENTER key | Visual Effects tab |
Adjust for best appearance radio button | OK button

WIN is the key with the Microsoft flag on top.

Ctrl and Plus key can be used to increase size of display within your browser.

Ctrl and Minus key can be used to decrease size.

This had a small effect too. We're slowly chipping away at my problem!

Size of the text in the browser doesn't help its grainy-ness. It just looks as though certain letters are less dark than others. L in pilot is lighter than the rest of the letters. Its odd.

 

[dsperber]

One more possibility, at least with Firefox.

You can fool around with the default font settings, to get things to look better. Note that this often is very dependent on graphics chip/card. I personally have seen much better looking characters displayed with ATI graphics products than with nVidia products.

Nevertheless, you can adjust things and try an alternative font... to see if it looks better or not. I even changed from serif to non-serif for a friend (who had a very inexpensive Compaq PC with basic nVidia graphics which looked awful using the normal default serif font, but was much improved using non-serif font).

Tools -> Options -> content tab

Then push the "advanced" button, and fool around with either font or point size, and see if you can improve how things look. Don't forget to also test printing, because this may also impact how web pages look when printed.

 

[Quin]

Read the sticky http://www.sevenforums.com/browsers-mail/152094-blurry-text-ie9-firefox-4-read.html

That worked! Thank you!

 

[Quin]

@dsperber

It seemed my problem had to deal with the "hardware acceleration when needed" being checked in my Firefox browser. Letters are now crisp again!

Thank you for your help regardless and everyone else, as well.

 

[dsperber]

@dsperber

It seemed my problem had to deal with the "hardware acceleration when needed" being checked in my Firefox browser. Letters are now crisp again!

Excellent! That was the goal, of course. I'm still curious as to your laptop and its video/graphics chip, to get to the bottom of why this hardware acceleration feature was significant.

Now that that's solved, have you re-tried "medium - 125%" font size? This really may be another preferable setting for you, if it looks better than "normal - 100%".

 

[karlsnooks]

It looks like that has had an effect, but after playing with it, it still looks pretty bad. In Facebook, for example, although status updates are a little clearer, now names of people are a much fatter bold.

Clarify the phrase "playing with it".

Please complete your system specs.

Thanks.
karl

 

[Quin]

@dsperber

It seemed my problem had to deal with the "hardware acceleration when needed" being checked in my Firefox browser. Letters are now crisp again!

Excellent! That was the goal, of course. I'm still curious as to your laptop and its video/graphics chip, to get to the bottom of why this hardware acceleration feature was significant.

Now that that's solved, have you re-tried "medium - 125%" font size? This really may be another preferable setting for you, if it looks better than "normal - 100%".

The sticky explained the problem really well in the second post. Apparently it's not the fault of the browser, but of Windows which hasn't found a fix for smaller fonts using so-and-so. (I don't remember the technical terms. )

Also, my HP laptop came with a Mobile Intel(R) 4 Series Express Chipset Family. Not much of a graphics card, but at least I'm not playing any high end video games on it.

 

[Quin]

It looks like that has had an effect, but after playing with it, it still looks pretty bad. In Facebook, for example, although status updates are a little clearer, now names of people are a much fatter bold.

Clarify the phrase "playing with it".

Please complete your system specs.

Thanks.
karl

Sorry, Karl, that was for p5bdkw. I replied to your help in a quote later down the page.

 

[karlsnooks]

Quin,

My two favorite programs for gathering info about a system are SPECCY and SIW, both of which are free.
Speccy - System Information - Free Download

SIW

 

[Quin]

Quin,

My two favorite programs for gathering info about a system are SPECCY and SIW, both of which are free.
Speccy - System Information - Free Download

SIW

Thanks Karl, I'll be sure use one or the other to fill in my system info.