Firefox LCD filtering is incorrect or missing

[Jud Craft]

Binary package hint: firefox

Firefox on Ubuntu 10.04 beta 1 ignores correct LCD filtering.

That is, subpixel smoothing is enabled, but the fonts in firefox (UI widgets, as well as the web page itself) are rendered without the appropriate filtering algorithm. Recall that Freetype has several different LCD-filtering algorithms, including "none", "light", "default", and "legacy". Normally programs are rendered with the default filter unless otherwise specified in font configuration.

Firefox seems to ignore the LCD filter used by the rest of Ubuntu (in essence, it appears to be using the "none" flag.) This causes text to have color-bleeding artifacts that stand out against the rest of the desktop.

Whether this is a bug in Firefox, Xulrunner, or Cairo I do not know. But font quality is degraded nonetheless, only in Firefox.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Sun Mar 21 12:39:22 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
FirefoxPackages:
 firefox 3.6+nobinonly-0ubuntu6
 firefox-gnome-support 3.6+nobinonly-0ubuntu6
 firefox-branding 3.6+nobinonly-0ubuntu6
 abroswer N/A
 abrowser-branding N/A
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Beta i386 (20100318)
Package: firefox 3.6+nobinonly-0ubuntu6
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-16.25-generic
SourcePackage: firefox
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-16-generic i686

[Micah Gersten (micahg)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This particular bug has already been reported and is a duplicate of bug 512615, so it is being marked as such. Please look at the other bug report to see if there is any missing information that you can provide, or to see if there is a workaround for the bug. Additionally, any further discussion regarding the bug should occur in the other report. Please continue to report any other bugs you may find.

[Jud Craft (craftjml+ubuntulp)]

I apologize. I had the presumption to assume this bug was left unfixed due to being unnoticed, and the Launchpad bug check for "LCD" and "filter" didn't return anything. This was my mistake for not searching deeper.

It was relatively easy to file the bug, I admit it was a pleasant experience for the most part.