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Different fonts for buttons, dropdown menus in Firefox 40

Andrius
Andrius
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After updating to Firefox 40, I noticed it uses different fonts for unstyled dropdown menus and buttons. More specifically, Firefox 39 used Microsoft Sans Serif whereas Firefox 40 uses Segoe UI for dropdown menus, and Tahoma for buttons. Also, some fields look higher in FF40.

Same is true for two separate systems, one running Win 7 and another Win 8.1. Furthermore, I installed Firefox Portable 39 and then 40 just to make sure.

Note the attached screenshots of site https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MozillaZine&action=history which I chose because it has dropdowns and buttons which clearly show the difference. They were made on same system, the only difference was Firefox 39 vs 40 (both with fresh profiles).

Is this intentional or a bug? Asking because it looks uglier than before IMHO.

After updating to Firefox 40, I noticed it uses different fonts for unstyled dropdown menus and buttons. More specifically, Firefox 39 used Microsoft Sans Serif whereas Firefox 40 uses Segoe UI for dropdown menus, and Tahoma for buttons. Also, some fields look higher in FF40. Same is true for two separate systems, one running Win 7 and another Win 8.1. Furthermore, I installed Firefox Portable 39 and then 40 just to make sure. Note the attached screenshots of site https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MozillaZine&action=history which I chose because it has dropdowns and buttons which clearly show the difference. They were made on same system, the only difference was Firefox 39 vs 40 (both with fresh profiles). Is this intentional or a bug? Asking because it looks uglier than before IMHO.
Attached screenshots

All Replies (2)

Banban
Banban
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You have got good eyes! I would never have noticed that myself…

I am not familiar with font management in Firefox, but you can check and compare (and change if you want) lines starting with font.name in about:config for each version.

Is it intentional? I cannot answer, it depends on results of the comparison. You can get major changes in Firefox releases:

  • here for Firefox 40.0
  • here for Firefox 40.0.2

Unfortunately, it is more difficult to know what are little changes just like the one you notice…

jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
  • Top 25 Contributor
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Firefox 40 has some theming changes related to Windows 10, but I don't know whether or how that affects Windows 7.

When I look at article history on MozillaZine KB I get a different page (not logged in) and button text for "Compare Selected Versions" is Verdana. That could be related to my overriding some default fonts I don't like at the Windows level. Not sure.