Default Arabic font in Firefox is ugly

[Usama Akkad]

Binary package hint: firefox

serif shouldn't be the default font for Arabic in firefox because it breaks between some letters and it's not easy to read. too thin.

I'm on Lucid

the problem is:
firefox is using serif as a default with the Arabic language

steps to reproduce:
go to an Arabic web page with no default font (google docs) or just unmark "allow pages to choose their own font's, instead of my selections above" from firefox preferences >> content >> fonts and colors >> Advanced and visit any Arabic web page

what is happening:
the font is ugly ,thin and hard to read

what should be:
the default font should be nice and perfect

workaround:
chose sans-serif instead of serif in firefox preferences >> content, or from advanced chose Arabic and then chose sans-serif instead of serif in Serif line.

suggestion:
I think using sans-serif instead of serif is better

[Zaher Kadour (zaher)]

Default Arabic font in Firefox is ugly

[Usama Akkad (damascene)]

$fc-match sans:lang=ar
DejaVuSans.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Book"

fc-match serif:lang=ar
FreeSerif.ttf: "FreeSerif" "Mittel"

seems like the freeserif font has issue

[bahaa2008 (bahaa2008)]

$ fc-match sans:lang=ar
DejaVuSans.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Book"

$ fc-match serif:lang=ar
Times_New_Roman.ttf: "Times New Roman" "Normal"

to me also the default font is ugly even in english

[Usama Akkad (damascene)]

@bahaa2008: you are using windows font. try to remove the font Times New Roman and check again. or just test the freeserif in openoffice and give us a feed back on it's look

[Majid Al-Dharrab (majid)]

It is indeed extremely ugly and almost unreadable. I would suggest using Liberation Serif or DejaVu Serif instead.
This is a screenshot of the Mozilla.com page in Arabic using Free Serif: http://bit.ly/dqxljn
Here is the same page viewed using DejaVu Serif: http://bit.ly/a4nneL
As you can see, it's much better and easier to read. I don't think fixing this bug should be a complicated matter since there are a lot of alternative fonts that come with a normal Ubuntu installation.

[dino99 (9d9)]

outdated report followed by so many new releases