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A possibility of using default system fonts for uBlock Origin? #1044
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Activity
The most recent update insists on using custom fonts for all the UI elements of the add-on.
Metropolis for High DPI devices and Inter for Low DPI devices.
Such requests for visual options which are not beneficial for majority of users are straying too far from the main goal of uBO: be an efficient content blocker and inform as best as possible users about where their browser connects. These options have a maintenance burden cost too which I am not willing to keep taking on. So I prefer to decline.
@birdie-github What is the specific reason for wanting to use system fonts?
@gorhill I wanted to post a similar request but birdie-github already did it. The reason I would appreciate this option is because the new font isn't rendered properly on my side. I'm not sure whether it's uBlock, Firefox or OS issue. I tried to troubleshoot (resetting and changing OS clear type settings, FX font rendering settings ect) but without effect. I don't see this issue on any other addon UI, FX UI, or web pages. I use FX 68 ESR, and Windows 7 x64.
For comparison, can you post similar screenshots for when using system fonts? You can either un-check the
font-familyproperty from thebodyelement in the browser's DOM inspector, or just install a pre-1.27.0 version of uBO from the Releases section.I am going to need more feedback from more people on this. From the screenshots, I am not sure what the issue is precisely. You say the "new font isn't rendered properly on my side", can you be more precise because I am not seeing anything obvious when compared to the system font in the screenshot from uBO 1.26.2.
I don't see this issue on any other addon UI
About this part, I checked and I can see that both ABP and AdGuard use font faces from their own package, i.e. they also do not use system fonts.
From the screenshots, I am not sure what the issue is precisely
Maybe it's nit-picking but in my opinion the rendering of the new font is worse than the system font. It's less sharp, some letters are jagged, the thickness is uneven.
I checked and I can see that both ABP and AdGuard use font faces from their own package, i.e. they also do not use system fonts.
I had just addons installed on my FX in mind, not all other addons/content-blockers. Sorry for not being precise.
What I am trying to decide here is whether it's such a widespread issue that I should revert to system font by default for all, a common-enough issue that an advanced setting is worth it, or such a rare issue that it's not worth the effort. An advanced setting is not trivial because then it would mean all HTML document pages in uBO need to get the fix.
Maybe it's about ttf vs otf?
I checked and both ABP and AdGuard uses
woff2format. I figure if they usewoff2surely it must be because there is a consensus that it should be fine on all platforms.Relevant to this issue, there was an issue raised with the Metropolis font in the past: gorhill/uBlock@5bee332#commitcomment-38664270.
8 remaining items
I have set
uiStylestofont-family: Ubuntu; font-weight: 300but this only affects the tabs and the buttons still use Metropolis.The use of consistent fonts throughout the UI is important for me. In fact, one of the reasons I use a content blocker is to prevent sites from forcing their fonts on me (and have to punch holes in that rule for any icon fonts). Having non-system fonts in the UI of the extension that I use for blocking non-system fonts is kinda offensive.
I can change the
font-familyfor the elements @yurikhan is talking about, but I can’t change theletter-spacingbecause it’s defined on.tabButtonandbutton…It looks horrible on my computer. It messes up the kerning (see how -oj and -aj look almost separate from the rest of word in «Agordoj», «Listoj», «Miaj» and «Filtriloj»):
Same thing in the «Advanced Settings» screen… Should I open a new issue or is this still considered to be relevant to this one?
Edit: relevant Firefox issue.
Try using
!important:letter-spacing: unset !important;Using
!importantdoesn’t work. Apparently, it doesn’t override declarations made on child elements. Anyway, changing the defaultletter-spacingusually makes text harder to read, because the kerning is of the font is made to look good with the default letter spacing.If you don’t feel that the
letter-spacingis particularly important, many other types of styling are available. You could always make texts a bit more bold (doesn’t seem to work with Inter though) or use more padding for these elements (tab titles and buttons).What exact CSS string did you use forNever mind, I can see it does not work -- not sure why since the property is inherited.uiStyles?The letter spacing was not a choice of mine, this was from this feedback thread, and more specifically this panel.
Ok, looking at the linked design pane above, I realize that the letter-spaced instances were all applying to text that was meant to be bold, and that might have been the primary reason for this. Since in the desktop version of uBO the bold text has been dropped, I guess I should also probably drop the
letter-spacingchange.- added a commit that references this issue
on Aug 29, 2020 Thanks a lot!
- added 2 commits that reference this issue
on Nov 4, 2020 - added 2 commits that reference this issue
on Jul 16, 2026
The most recent update insists on using custom fonts for all the UI elements of the add-on. Is it too much to ask to add an option to be able to use default system fonts for the text inside the add-on?
Thank you!