A better Web

Remember how I recently mentioned the “Read Easily” extension for Firefox?

Well, some time after that, I remembered the Always use my: Fonts checkbox in the browser’s Fonts & Colors configuration pane. I used it a couple times, and found it a very effective way to get exactly what I wanted: sensible fonts at sensible sizes. Sometimes, though, font choices convey meaning that needs to be preserved (proportional font for code snippets really isn’t a good idea). But getting to that checkbox to toggle it is even more cumbersome than the View → Page Style → No Style dance I rid myself of through the use of Read Easily. So I went looking for a way to ease access. In the end, I installed Pref Buttons and put a Fonts checkbox on my navigation bar.

Now, I view most of the web through Bitstream Vera Sans-coloured glasses.

I wasn’t going to post an entire note about a triviality like this one, but I found myself stopping and marvelling at the astonishing effect it has had on the apperance of familiar sites time and again. Do you have any idea how much better (more beautiful; more readable) the Google results page looks when it’s in Vera Sans rather than (yuck) Arial? How the pain of pages using 9px Georgia for bulk text simply evaporates as if it was never there? It feels silly to make such a big deal out of this, but after two weeks the effect still astounds me several times a day.

Someone tell me why I should ever go back to browsing any other way.