Some users have reported an issue in which Safari 5.0 renders some web pages with blurry fonts. Apple Discussion poster Peter Whysall writes:
“Since installing Safari 5, I am seeing certain websites where the body text appears to have broken sub-pixel antialiasing. To confuse matters further, this problem can show in text on one part of a page, but not in others.
Peter also posted a screenshot of the problem (Safari on the left — click image to enlarge).
Fix
As noted by several users, this problem can be solved by disabling Flash. This can be easily accomplished with ClickToFlash, This handy utility allows users to–as the name implies–trigger playback of Flash content on web pages via a mouse click. It also swaps out Flash-based YouTube videos for higher-quality H.264 versions (something that can also be accomplished by joining the YouTube HTML5 beta).
Failing ClickToFlash, you can download the Flash uninstaller to remove Flash altogether.
July 10, 2010 at 4:41 PM
Yet another post that is completely devoid of details; how do we know whether this is relating to Core Animation, the OpenGL issues as noted in a previous post, and a particular nVidia driver?
For the record I have never seen it come up when using Safari 5 so there is something going pear shaped with your setup – either hardware or software settings. Clear out all your ~/Library settings, reboot and see if the issues come back.
July 11, 2010 at 11:11 AM
read here:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2488048&tstart=0
i’m not sure it’s (entirely) flash-related, but either javascript (mouseover and onclick events), or even css3 related. certain css3 transition effects can cause this to happen. it makes the subpixel-antialiasing go awry, even worse than if you had forced safari to switch its font rendering mode via css from the default subpixel-antialiasing to plain antialiasing.
go to the mac mini design page mentioned in the link above, remove and replace the base cover in the animation image of the mac mini, and watch the text links change at the bottom of the page.
March 27, 2011 at 8:46 AM
Hi,
The tip to use ClicktoFlash – http://clicktoflash.com/ certainly proofs that the blurriness in rendering of arial font on pages with flash is definitely related with the flash movie in combination with something in safari.
Just wish someone could explain more why or what in Safari is causing this. It must be something in the webkit engine, although Google Chrome does not appear to have this problem.
Still hoping for a solution.
December 30, 2011 at 6:30 PM
It happens to me sometimes while typing in a blog or some other text box and the text becomes blurry and then freezes that page. It only freezes that page until the blur goes away. It seems to happen on my laptop only and my fat thumbs get in the way and it seems like what is happening is that my thumbs and fingers touch the trackpad a specific way and thats what causes the issue. It is not that the page just comes up blurry but I have had that happen too.
Really bad when your almost done with a long blog and you loose all your work.
December 30, 2011 at 6:38 PM
I think I just figured out how to get back to doing what you were doing after the page freezes and blurs the text. Just do a pinch gesture or the strokes to make the page smaller and it should go right away. Just did that and it cleared up instantly.
Done. Works. Try it.