Yes that is right. For some reason Safari's font rendering engine makes the web sites look much better than IE, Firefox, Chrome or Opera. And Safari is now available for PC as well.
Without getting too much into this (Joel did) here is a picture to illustrate it. First is the example of Mac rendering below is PC:
I have noticed this while initiating change on my site design. I have a goal in my mind and so far I have only re-styled the home page (to regular viewers - how do you like it?).
Here is comparison of how the site looks in Firefox and Safari (click to open full size). You can immediately see the difference in text rendering and how smoother and more polished the text looks in Safari (below).
Did I mention that Safari loads lighting fast (faster the Chrome). I would start using it this instant if I could get my Firefox plugins ported to it somehow - can't leave without them.
Suggested reading:
- Webification.com – Shiny New Website
- Retrospective of the first year online with cool stats pictures
- New Minimalist Blog Design
Posted in: Startups
TAGS:chrome font rendering, chrome safari font, firefox addon safari engine, firefox font smoothing javascript, font smoothing safari better, safari browser appearance youtube, safari browser themes, safari font smoothing, safari fonts, safari style top firefox, safari style websites, style safari browser, style theme safari browser, themes safari browser, this best viewed safari, what font safari
6 Comments
It's not just Safari, websites look much clearer and better on OSX generally compared with Windows. My heart always sinks when I see the web on a PC as it just isn't as nice. Basically, the web looks crap on PCs.
I wonder if it has anything to do with PCs using 96dpi for fonts, compared with 72dpi on Macs? I could be wrong.
Hi,
You're right. The pages looks a lot of beter in Safari than IE or Firefox. I did't know that the rendering engine was causing that.
Martin
I agree with Andy. It looks, it only increase the weight.
I totally disagree!
Safari adds weight to your text and it makes it look bold instead of normal. I've made a test 10 days ago - you can check the results here
http://www.graphicrating.com/2008/12/21/browsers-war-text-rendering/
Safari has by far the weirdest rendering engine.
You're entirely right. Safari has anti-aliasing / font smoothing built in (kind of like how IE has support for ClearType) and it's configurable in Edit -> Preferences -> Appearance. Some people don't like the font smoothing, but I love it.
But I would love to have add-ons in Safari and Chrome.
Hi Vlad,
I also noticed the difference some time ago .... what a shame IE has so much of the 'market'. It is also (IE) that gives us designer types the most grief with CSS.
How do we get the message to the masses? Do we have a 'best viewed in Safari' warning at the top of our sites?!
I also love to rant!
My main two firefox plugins are the Foxmarks and Firebug/Web developer ones.
Have you done an article on Firefox plug ins and how they can help bloggers using your theme (hint hint)?
Brian