Might have mentioned this to a few people while I was back home. (You know who you are).
Been having this problem with my Chrome web browsers. Yes, browsers. Chrome (one of the many reasons why I love it) synchronizes all its settings across all browsers that I am logged into – being in front of one is just like being in front of any of them – Since I run three main computers, work, home PC and laptop, it is very very very convenient.
The problem is squares. Lots and lots of little squares.
Everywhere there should be a little symbol – called ansi symbols, I get a square. You have to hover the mouse over each square to figure out what it should do.
Not. Fun. Not even a little bit.
Since I am getting back into the blog, this was the tipping point…. As you can see here……
It makes blogging a bit tricky. (And to be clear, it’s not a WordPress issue, it is every where an ansi symbol should appear, even in my beloved groov).
I have had this issue for around 8+ months now, and not just with the blog, but on every website that has, well, symbols. Every. Website. Every.
Ok, so what’s the problem?
Fonts.
This is what started it…. Many websites showed up as pretty ugly text. Most websites.
Here is an example of what I was seeing.
As you can see, the font under the main heading is pretty mangled. Pretty hard to read when you get a web page full of it.
Ok, so what was the solution months ago?
Install a Chrome extension that makes all fonts a default type, like Ariel. Yes, it overrides the pages CSS. That fixed all my text issues, but introduced the square symbol issue. At the time, I could put up with the squares. While it was annoying, it at least meant I could read the Internet.
Pretty simple choice really. Read the web, or have symbols. One or the other, but not both.
This is a bit of a known problem. Google Chrome just does not handle the whole font thing very well.
How to fix it. That’s the real challenge.
I have no idea. But. On the upside, as of a few days ago, at least now I know the root cause of the problem.
