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On Firefox text is jagged and not anti-aliased. The same web pages in Internet Expolorer 10 are perfect. How to fix this problem?

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  • Last reply by cor-el

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Recently I view the same web page, on the same computer, using Firefox and Internet Explorer 10. The poor text quality I had blamed on websites turned out to be a problem in Firefox. All letters including what I am typing now have irregular line widths and jagged edges as if very low resolution without antialiasing can be used. I have tried using your online help but your search function is useless, it searches for individual words and produces results sometimes wildly out of context. Are there any settings in Firefox I can try changing to improve quality. Since IE 10 gives excellent graphic quality I have no reason to believe that any of my computer's graphics are at fault.

Recently I view the same web page, on the same computer, using Firefox and Internet Explorer 10. The poor text quality I had blamed on websites turned out to be a problem in Firefox. All letters including what I am typing now have irregular line widths and jagged edges as if very low resolution without antialiasing can be used. I have tried using your online help but your search function is useless, it searches for individual words and produces results sometimes wildly out of context. Are there any settings in Firefox I can try changing to improve quality. Since IE 10 gives excellent graphic quality I have no reason to believe that any of my computer's graphics are at fault.

Chosen solution

You can try to disable hardware acceleration in Firefox.

  • Options/Preferences -> Advanced -> General -> Browsing: "Use hardware acceleration when available"

You need to close and restart Firefox after toggling this setting.

You can check if there is an update for your graphics display driver and check for hardware acceleration related issues.


This could be related with the recent switch in Firefox 52+ from Cairo to Skia for canvas/content rendering.

Firefox 52+ has changed from Cairo to Skia for canvas/content rendering.

You can modify these gfx.*.azure.backends prefs on the about:config page to revert to the old font rendering swap the skia,cairo order to cairo,skia or remove the skia and leave cairo.

  • gfx.canvas.azure.backends = direct2d1.1,cairo,skia
  • gfx.content.azure.backends = direct2d1.1,cairo,skia

You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar.

You can accept the warning and click "I'll be careful" to continue.

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hello, could you go to the firefox menu ≡ > help ? > troubleshooting information, copy the contents of that page and paste them here into a reply on the forum? this might give us a clue what is going on...

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Chosen Solution

You can try to disable hardware acceleration in Firefox.

  • Options/Preferences -> Advanced -> General -> Browsing: "Use hardware acceleration when available"

You need to close and restart Firefox after toggling this setting.

You can check if there is an update for your graphics display driver and check for hardware acceleration related issues.


This could be related with the recent switch in Firefox 52+ from Cairo to Skia for canvas/content rendering.

Firefox 52+ has changed from Cairo to Skia for canvas/content rendering.

You can modify these gfx.*.azure.backends prefs on the about:config page to revert to the old font rendering swap the skia,cairo order to cairo,skia or remove the skia and leave cairo.

  • gfx.canvas.azure.backends = direct2d1.1,cairo,skia
  • gfx.content.azure.backends = direct2d1.1,cairo,skia

You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar.

You can accept the warning and click "I'll be careful" to continue.