Microsoft finally pays attention to Google Chrome font issues on Windows 10 & 11

If you see blurry or thin text on Google Chrome, it is not your eyes to blame. It is a known issue on Windows 11 and 10, and Microsoft is working to fix it.

Although the issue doesn’t seem to appear for all the display styles and only with Google Chrome, we tend to think that the browser company is responsible for that. However, in reality, Chrome is not completely to blame.

Let us understand the issue and why it happens. Windows inbuilt apps use various contrast and gamma values for text rendering using DirectWrite, a native text stack API. Google also uses the same, but the implementation is restricted to specific tasks such as detecting fonts.

Also, Google depends on the Skia graphics library, which means it takes care of its text shaping and rendering on all platforms. However, this leads to notable differences in how text appears on Windows compared to other apps.

This bug was reported by Windows Latest. It is not the first time that Microsoft has improved the look and feel of the browser in its operating system. Earlier, the Redmond tech giant worked on enhancing the Chrome experience on touch PCs.

According to a document posted on Chromestatus, Windows ClearType Text Tuner will soon be integrated into Chrome. In 2021, ClearType Tuner was added to Edge as well.

The overview on Chromestatus mentioned:

This feature tracks the work to support picking the contrast and gamma values from the Windows ClearType Text Tuner setting and applying them to Skia text rendering. This ensures that users’ text rendering preferences are respected on Windows devices.

Historically, Chromium/Skia has used compile-time constants for text contrast and gamma, with different values hard-coded per platform. This means that these values are not adjustable by the end user. Windows has a ClearType Text Tuner that guides the user through various contrast and gamma values for text rendering. Native applications generally automatically pick up these values if they use a DirectWrite based text stack. Chromium uses Skia for text rendering, and thus was not picking up these user adjustments on Windows.

To fix this ongoing problem, Microsoft will make changes to the Chromium code base to pick up the contrast and gamma values from the Windows ClearType Text Tuner setting and apply them to Skia text rendering.

Microsoft spokesperson said:

Full ClearType support is not possible in Chrome, due to it using Skia for text rendering. However, the latest Canary will apply values for the ClearType Tuner on Windows and map them to Skia text rendering, which is as close to ClearType support as is currently possible.

These changes can now be seen in Chrome Canary for Windows 10/11, and their general availability can be expected with Chrome version 124.

Did you also experience the Chrome blurry effect on Windows? If so, share your experience in the comments section below.