Weird fonts (overly bold, not sharp enough) & Toolbar buttons customization?

Sixtheninth · May 22, 2019, 9:16pm

I have just installed Brave to see what the buzz is all about (so far I have been using FF & Pale Moon).
Immediately a several problems popped out:

Blurry fonts. I managed to decrease the blur by switching off the AA settings in Nvidia, but it is not enough as they still are not crisp clear as in Firefox that is noticeable especially in bold fonts which are overdone.
The base text is too bright. When doing screen to screen comparison Brave renders text too light gray as opposed to saturated gray or outright black. Probably bound to the same problem as 1.
I have tried to switch off hardware acceleration, but without any result.
I find strange that Brave browser lacks completely option to customize buttons and browsing toolbar above bookmarks. Several Chromium browser can at least change where buttons will appear. I have been using Reload button always on the right side of the navbar, now I am forced to use it on left, quite annoying.
The strangest bug I found in the Brave browser is in the rendering of my own website though:
https://talkingames.com/ - if you follow the link and scroll down to footer, you will notice that Donate buttons are uneven. Not a single browser I have tried before generates this anomaly, just brave. Could you explain why?

That’d be all, I am looking forward to your response

Cheers

Dgenies · May 20, 2019, 3:25pm

i reviewed your site and found the donate buttons aren’t identical code wise. and their css are total different. please check it again with other browser like chrome opera and you would see the same effect.

huh what version of chrome did you use? mobile? i also have chrome and can’t find an option for reload on t he right side.

@mattches

@mattches

@mattches

Sixtheninth · May 20, 2019, 5:44pm

AD - https://www.slimjet.com/en/customize-chrome-toolbar.php
That’s weird, I tested this thoroughly on Firefox, Edge, Pale Moon, both buttons are exactly matching even on other responsive screens. This is the first time I see this occurring, I wonder why is it browser specific?

Dgenies · May 20, 2019, 6:29pm

doesn’t work with recent chrome versions

Sixtheninth · May 25, 2019, 9:18am

Still no answer to the font problem? If that can be solved, I might excuse the inability of customizing the buttons on toolbar despite it being really annoying.

Dgenies · May 25, 2019, 9:26am

I think in the upcoming releases you can customise your fonts and its size. At least I have seen this in the nightly versions

hnktong · May 28, 2019, 3:48pm

See brave://settings/fonts in current Brave Release (as well as Beta, Dev, and Nightly).

Sixtheninth · May 29, 2019, 8:48am

I might have not expressed myself clearly. I am not talking about system fonts, they are ok after I switched off the AA in Nvidia settings (weird necessity, but ok). I am talking about the quality of the font on the actual websites. If I run FF and Brave side to side comparison, I am seeing discrepancies which are quite visible and eye tiring:

In my Gmail inbox whilst using a dark theme - the bold text is overly bright and slight distorted in comparison of crisp sharp and balanced FF.
Article texts on various newspaper/magazine/blog website appears often too pale gray, not saturated enough of outright faded in comparison to FF where text is perfectly readable with a proper saturated dark ink without any fading.
Also what I find very strange that Brave does not support 133% zoom (or custom zoom function) which I use in FF quite often.

In overall, I really wish we have much more customization functions for the browser so it can compete with FF. The only upside is the BAT rewards right now. But even then I keep being presented by a single AD on repeat which is pretty boring and rather irritating.

Security wise I am pretty much covered in Pale Moon and FF with extensions. So I am still not really persuaded that Brave is the right browser of the choice right now and sadly I cannot recommend it as much as I wanted.

hnktong · May 29, 2019, 4:49pm

Thank you, @Sixtheninth, for the additional explanation.

Zoom 133%: I’m interpreting your zoom level comment as wanting the specific value 133% to be available as opposed to an inability to zoom past that level (cmd-+ and cmd-- (or ctrl-+ and ctrl-- on Windows)). I see why you think it’s weird that it’s NOT available in the list when 33% and 67% are listed in Page zoom in settings (). That actually appears to be a Chromium thing, not just Brave (Chromium, Chrome, and Brave all skip 133%, presumably other Chromium-based browsers do, too unless the developers change it).

Luckily, there’s an extension that adds some incremental levels (130%) and allows adjustment 1% at a time:

Font/elements discrepancies:
I’m baffled. I didn’t see what OS you’re using, so to check, I tried macOS 10.14.4 and Windows 10 Home 10.0.17763 Build 17763 with Brave Release (Version 0.64.77 Chromium: 74.0.3729.169 (Official Build) (64-bit) and Firefox Nightly (69.0a1 (2019-05-29) (64-bit)) side by side, Brave on left. In Mac I see no significant difference between the two, though in Windows 10 the Brave rendering seems a bit as you describe. Sample screenshots below, the last being Windows 10.

For the overly bright issue in Dark Mode, I use the extension Dark Night Mode with excellent results:

Sample Brave vs. Firefox images (light mode):
Your website from original post:

GMail showing a message from Twitter:

Article about zoom in Chrome/ium (Windows 10):

Sixtheninth · May 29, 2019, 5:31pm

Yup I am on Win 10 Pro. I wonder if the offset contrast/brightness and the pale fonts are caused by the browser or the theme used. I tried dark night mode plugin, but the auto mode does nothing and if I set it on, it strangely change my menus in gmail to a weird aquamarine blue?! Whilst I am just trying to achieve the same sharpness and contrast as I have in FF.

Here are examples side by side in the standard brave and dark FF theme:

Sixtheninth · May 29, 2019, 5:34pm

Plus in that Dark Night Mode, quite a number of commonly used websites look just outright terrible, Facebook being one of them. I wish there some controls to it other then Brightness slider.

hnktong · May 29, 2019, 6:39pm

That’s really weird, I just tried facebook on Mac and Windows with Dark Night Mode and it looked pretty good (considering it’s facebook in the first place). I checked a couple of different ways and I don’t appear to have any other display modifying extensions or themes active on the Mac, though I do have the Windows 10 Dark theme on in Win10:
SimpleExtManager on Mac and on Win10:

Apparently Chrome has a history of ignoring system resolution in favor of its own, whereas Firefox does not. That’s probably part of WebKit vs. Gecko. Wouldn’t that mean that if Chrome’s dpi were the same as macOS that the Windows version would draw things differently than FF in Windows, where FF would use the Windows system default, but they’d be the same in macOS?

And at this point I’m bouncing up and down on my tip toes in the water and shall bow out to those with superior KungFu.

Sixtheninth · June 3, 2019, 12:33pm

btw, I tried to use that Zoom plugin, but it the moment I hit 130% the FB messenger gets broken and each block of text sent is accompanied by a blue underline, it seems that Chrome simply does not like this zoom level.