Well Kapil, I am one of those that font smoothing pisses me off (in that sense it gives me headaches) and yes I very much agree with your view. I cannot feel sympathy with Gregg’s accusative analysis, and why I must feel compelled to admit that this is the right technology and accept that If I feel sick then something is wrong with me. I hated the font smoothing option after XP, and my impression was (right or wrong) that this technology had to do with the fact that a lot of cheaper LCD monitors that where the majority in the market at the beginning of the LCD era where not able to display acceptably the fonts without smoothing algorithms, and also because not all fonts are quality ones (so that they look ugly on some sizes). I had the possibility to use high quality monitor back on 2005 with XP, and admired the 1pixel rizor sharp quality which I show with my EIZO L997, not so much sharp with high end CRT, and I show that sharpness disappearing with win7 default mode. I so much loved linux distributions for not being fond of that technology at that times. Now In my win8 I just changed system fonts through registry and disabled the smoothing. My fonts are razor sharp, I selected nice fonts, I hate smothing on most devices, and yes I wear no glasses and see sharp. You are not crazy, the difference is perceptible but not for everyone. I thing the majority of users doesn’t care..

If the intent of font anti-aliasing isn’t actually to make it easier on font designers who would otherwise be burdened with actually checking to see that their fonts look good on multiple resolutions and in multiple font-sizes, but instead to increase the number of pixels used in rendering fonts so that they’re smoother, why don’t we just use ‘multi-pixel’ rendering? Also known as using bold-faces.

In more information dense materials (encyclopedias, dictionaries) you’ll see those sharp fonts as they reduce ink bleeding; The bold-face fonts that are often seen in cheap literature aren’t seen quite as often when you’re moving to books that have actual information, though some might use slightly bolder fonts. However, these fonts are typically for those who are hard of seeing, not those who aren’t blind as a bat.

Additionally, many clear-type fonts are NOT designed correctly and look worse with clear type off due to the font design, not due to sub-pixel rendering actually improving the fonts in general. The images you posted are issues that would not occur on correctly designed fonts. Arial, for instance. I started this off talking about intent because you have conflated the effect of font anti-aliasing on fonts that are poorly designed with the effect of font anti-aliasing in general.

Finally, I’ll note that not only do I believe you aren’t stupid enough to actually go read this (if you are, I pity you) but I don’t care what you think… In normal human dynamics, what you’re teasing people about is called “venting” and it is a healthy way of relieving oneself of the stress imposed by exceedingly rude individuals. If you don’t like people venting at you, perhaps you should stop posting, that way there would no longer be anything for them to vent at. Everyone wins that way!

I understand very well. My usuall word while reading cleartype is f..k! f..k! (i my language:)