I find most kanji appear in my computer's browser somewhere between readable and a solid blob. My solution so far has been to zoom in when I cannot read a character, which is quite disruptive compared to normal browsing. Forum topics here, which appear to use a bolder font, are even harder to read. I took screenshots of a post and the forum topic list so that I could compare: http://imgur.com/a/0kcgY

I have to increase the font size on some English sites (*cough* http://daringfireball.net uses tiny text *cough*) but most sites are fine. Almost any Japanese site makes me increase the font size. Safari and Firefox both have this problem, on a Macbook Air running OS X 10.8. I have this problem on my iPhone and iPad as well, but zooming is so easy on those that it doesn't matter.

Do other people have this problem? What is your solution, if you do? I started recently, so maybe I am missing something. This makes looking up new characters tedious, which I imagine will be a problem once I'm past the word lists.

[ファブリス]

This may not be what you want to hear but for blogs like John Gruber's you can use a RSS reader on desktop or your tablet, which makes reading many blogs so handy. You then get many settings for text size and such.

You can also use one of the "caching" services like ReadItLater, InstaPaper or GetPocket, they usually have browser extensions. By clicking a button you have a "reading view" which usually also has greater font sizes.

You also should find a min. font size setting somewhere in your browser (I can see one in Google Chrome's Advanced settings).

Perhaps try changing the default font in Firefox to one with good Japanese support as well?

In Firefox, change your default character encoding to "Unicode (UTF-8)".

Also, change your default font.

Then UNCHECK the option that says to allow webpages to have their own font choices.
(Preferences -> Content -> Fonts & Colors -> Advanced)

Well on firefox, my solution is to always have rikaichan up and running. Whenever I have trouble reading something, my mouseover shows a giant popup of it.

Zarxrax Wrote:Well on firefox, my solution is to always have rikaichan up and running. Whenever I have trouble reading something, my mouseover shows a giant popup of it.

Rikaichan looks quite helpful, I installed it and already like it so far.

chamcham Wrote:Then UNCHECK the option that says to allow webpages to have their own font choices.
(Preferences -> Content -> Fonts & Colors -> Advanced)

As a programming nerd, it hurts just thinking about doing that. I feel like I have to use most programs, websites etc the way they were intended. Except obnoxious fonts and font sizes, which are met with Safari's Reader or Instapaper when possible.

I'll keep it in mind if I dedicate a browser to learning Japanese.

Hyperborea Wrote:On Safari preferences under "Advanced" turn on the option to "Never use a font size smaller than X" and then set X to the size that you want as a minimum.

On Firefox, preferences, content, Fonts & Colors, Advanced, and then set the minimum font size by script/language.

I didn't know about the per-language setting. I tried it and it didn't help on this forum but will likely help me elsewhere. Still, changing the font size in Safari doesn't help readability of the forum's topic list. I will have to see if I can force fonts on a per-subdomain basis to just get the forums.

Thanks for the suggestions!