How to improve Firefox font rendering on Linux

For one reason or another, Mozilla Firefox may not render fonts as intended on all Linux systems. Fortunately, Firefox gives us a lot of control over the font configuration, so we can fine tune these settings until it looks better.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to access Firefox’s font settings to improve rendering. We’ll also go over some more advanced options in case the usual ones don’t work for you.

In this tutorial you will learn:

  • How to configure Firefox font settings
  • Advanced font settings in about:config
  • Operating system level font tweaks

Font settings in Mozilla Firefox

Font settings in Mozilla Firefox

Software Requirements and Linux Command Line Conventions
Category Requirements, Conventions or Software Version Used
System Any Linux distro
Software Mozilla Firefox
Other Privileged access to your Linux system as root or via the sudo command.
Conventions # – requires given linux commands to be executed with root privileges either directly as a root user or by use of sudo command
$ – requires given linux commands to be executed as a regular non-privileged user

Firefox Font Settings

You can access Firefox’s font settings by first clicking the menu icon (three stacked lines in the upper right corner), and selecting Preferences.

Open the Preferences menu

Open the Preferences menu

Make sure you’re on the General tab, then scroll down just a bit to the “Language and Appearance” section. You can now change the default font and font size for Firefox. You can also choose to increase the zoom on the text or select some different default colors.

The Language and Appearance section has the font settings

The Language and Appearance section has the font settings

For more granular control, click on “Advanced” to pick a different default font for each type – like proportional, serif, sans-serif, and monospace.



Advanced font settings with granular control

Advanced font settings with granular control

To make sure that all websites adhere to the changes you’ve made, you can also uncheck the “Allow pages to choose their own fonts, instead of your selections above” option.

Advanced Font Settings

If editing the settings mentioned above didn’t improve the font rendering on your system, there are even more options available in Firefox’s about:config area. You can use these settings if you’re having particular trouble with antialiasing, for example.

Type about:config into the address bar. If warned that you are about to edit advanced configuration preferences, click to proceed.

To see all font related settings, you can type “font” into the search bar.

All font related settings in the Advanced Preferences menu

All font related settings in the Advanced Preferences menu

This can return an overwhelming number of results, so it’s better to narrow our search. Typing “font_r” in the search bar will let you see all the settings that pertain to font rendering, including a setting for antialiasing called gfx.font_rendering.ahem_antialias_none. To toggle this setting, you can click the icon to the right of it.

Toggle antialiasing on or off

Toggle antialiasing on or off

Of course, feel free to tweak other settings in this menu as needed. Just remember to restore their defaults if they produce any undesired results.



Operating System Level Font Tweaks

It’s also possible to edit the font rendering in the operating system itself. This can vary widely, depending on which Linux distro you’re using and which desktop environment. As an example, GNOME Tweaks contains a lot of font rendering options, but this is only applicable on the GNOME desktop environment.

Default fonts, hinting, and antialiasing setings in GNOME Tweaks

Default fonts, hinting, and antialiasing setings in GNOME Tweaks

As you can see, default fonts and other settings like antialiasing and hinting can all be configured here. On other distros, like Debian, a .fonts.conf XML file can be created in the user’s home directory to control certain aspects of font smoothing. Here’s an example that was taken from Debian’s website:

<?xml version='1.0'?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM 'fonts.dtd'>
 <match target="font">
  <edit mode="assign" name="rgba">
   <const>rgb</const>
  </edit>
 </match>
 <match target="font">
  <edit mode="assign" name="hinting">
   <bool>true</bool>
  </edit>
 </match>
 <match target="font">
  <edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle">
   <const>hintslight</const>
  </edit>
 </match>
 <match target="font">
  <edit mode="assign" name="antialias">
   <bool>true</bool>
  </edit>
 </match>
  <match target="font">
  <edit mode="assign" name="lcdfilter">
    <const>lcddefault</const>
  </edit>
  </match>
</fontconfig>

There is no “one size fits all” solution for every distro and desktop environment, so further research may be required for your particular system.

Closing Thoughts

In this guide, we saw several methods for improving the font rendering of Mozilla Firefox on a Linux system. Firefox gives us a lot of control over how fonts are displayed, so editing the settings from the Preferences menu should clear up almost any issue. If not, there are still advanced settings that can be tinkered with, as well as more font smoothing options down at the operating system level.



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