Hacker News Reader

Comment by dataflow | Hacker News Reader

Left side is actually sharp, with subpixel smoothing. Right side is awful (just like many parts of post-Vista Windows) with apparent grayscale AA.

This is something they actually got right; it's one thing that was terrible about IE and the old Edge, and that I'd bet was subconsciously turning many people off (in my case, consciously making me want to tear my eyes out). If you can't see the difference, open dev console on the screenshot and run:

  document.body.style.zoom = 1 / window.devicePixelRatio

If this doesn't work in the new Edge, try in Chrome (not sure if Edge supports this zoom mechanism). You should definitely be able to see the difference in sharpness.

Edit: Maybe also worth mentioning, Firefox's bold font rendering is one thing keeping me away from it. Lack of the above zoom mechanism is another. Not sure if I'm alone in these.

View on HN

All in all, I'd say the one on the left is more pleasant to read and easier on the eyes, despite being "thinner". The jagged edges on the right feel on my eyes like the sound of relentless blackboard scratching.

That's a really nice way to put it, I could never find a decent way to describe it until now!

>Right side is awful (just like many parts of post-Vista Windows) with apparent grayscale AA

By "post-Vista" you mean Windows 8 and later? Vista and 7 (its refinement) were the peak of subpixel-antialiased ClearType with the Segoe font. It was with Metro and its animated, rotation-enabled, mobile-first design language that antialiasing was downgraded to greyscale.

No, I mean since Vista and later. Ever since DWM was introduced, anything rendered on a DWM surface (or something along those lines, I don't know the details) has been blurry. The taskbar text is an easy example. The Metro UI did extend that to even more places, though.

> Firefox's bold font rendering is one thing keeping me away from it.

You are not alone. Firefox font rendering actually upsets me. Comparing to Chrome rendering, it's just a non-starter.

I have brought this up many times, but I get blasted for it. Apparently it's all based on opinion alone and you and I have a very minority opinion in these tech communities. I suspect that the silent majority is with us though.

Yeah, exactly. I get blasted all the time for it too. Same suspicion here about other users being on our side, though they might not be able to put their finger on what the problem is.

Both sides of the screenshot are perfectly readable. Why make such a big deal about such a small difference?

Well, to me it is a big deal. I'm not trying to make it one, it just is. Best analogy I can give you is probably the one in the sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22057875

Reply on news.ycombinator.com