Comment 1 for bug 212176

I had the same problem, but now it's solved.
I created ~/.fonts.conf and wrote to it the following.

 <?xml version='1.0'?>
 <!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM 'fonts.dtd'>
 <fontconfig>
  <match target="font" >
   <edit mode="assign" name="hinting" >
    <bool>false</bool>
   </edit>
  </match>
 </fontconfig>

After I rebooted X, Firefox comes to show smooth fonts, without hinting.

My environment:
- Xubuntu Hardy
- Firefox: 3.0~b5+nobinonly-0ubuntu3