Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Fix Fonts in Firefox 3.5 and Ubuntu

In Ubuntu, some people have experienced some issue with the subpixel smoothing of fonts for Firefox 3.5.

Before and after screenshots:
firefox 3.5 no subpixel smoothingfirefox 3.5 with subpixel smoothing
BeforeAfter


To fix this font issue in Firefox 3.5 there are 2 possible solutions:


Fix 1: Create a new file in your home folder called ".fonts.conf" (notice the dot in front of fonts) and paste this inside the file:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
<match target="font" >
<edit mode="assign" name="rgba" >
<const>rgb</const>
</edit>
</match>
<match target="font" >
<edit mode="assign" name="hinting" >
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
</match>
<match target="font" >
<edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle" >
<const>hintfull</const>
</edit>
</match>
<match target="font" >
<edit mode="assign" name="antialias" >
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
</match>
</fontconfig>
After this, don't forget to restart Firefox 3.5


Fix 2: Paste this in a terminal:
sudo rm /etc/fonts/conf.d/10*
sudo dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig
Restart Firefox 3.5 and it's done.

Also, I suggest you use Swiftfox which is an improved Firefox build. It doesn't seem to have any problems with the subpixel smoothing.