While surfing around the internet, sometimes you may come to a website with appearantly nasty looking, unreadable fonts.. well, let me guess, you are probably using IE and that the designer has probably used dropshadow filter in their css for their fonts.
why is that? this is because you have cleartype turned on for your computer.
for example: you might see something like
http://regretless.com/buttons/others/cleartype_ss.gif
well many other people who DON’T have the cleartype function turned on will see something like:
http://regretless.com/buttons/others/cleartype_no_ss.gif
what exactly is cleartype?
to put it in my simple terms: it’s a function on your computer that allows you to see fonts in anti-aliased forms. read more about cleartype here
How do you Turn ClearType on/off?
1. Right-click your desktop and select Properties.
2. Select the Appearance tab, and press the Effects button.
3. Check the box next to the words labeled “Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts,” and select the option you want from the drop-down box.
4. Close the Effects dialog by clicking OK, and click Apply to complete the process.
Pure-Essence.Net 
^.^ thanks for the tip! I don’t really encounter such a problem. Will there be any chance that cleartype turns off itself?
windows XP has cleartype turned on by default.
as far as i know, windows xp does not turn cleartype on by default (however there is a standard antialiasing method, too – maybe you are referring to that). and i truly appreciate the posting of moritz, if there would be a remedy for those eye-cancerous pages…
I always wondered what caused those fonts to look so weird… thanks! 😀
oh, thank you! Now I can explain some of my visitors why sometimes they can’t see my website properly 🙂
i´d wish this would help for all the websites with appearantly nasty looking, unreadable fonts. but most time people just put yellow letters on green background or use a background image that makes text nearly impossible to read without getting cancer of the eyes.
now I know how it goes. thanks
yay, thanks! *goes to turn cleartype off* It was very annoying. ^_^;