In Ubuntu and its related distributions, the font rendering has gotten pretty good so that you don't have to do much tweaking.  However, there may be some nagging ugliness while web browsing if you prefer sharp fonts, and no matter how much you adjust the settings, it's not going to get fixed.  It's not because of the web browser or desktop settings.


So, what's going on here?  Well, it turns out Ubuntu by default has versions of typical Microsoft fonts installed, such as Arial, Verdana, Courier, etc. and they all look like crap.  For whatever reason, they do not alias properly and end up with ugly blurry asymmetric edges.  By just getting rid of these fonts, everything immediately prettifies by falling back on default free serif or sans serif fonts.


What we'll do is move the font folder containing the fonts to a backup folder in your home directory.

sudo mv /usr/share/fonts/truetype/msttcorefonts ~/backup

Restart your web browser and behold a much prettier Internet.