Google Chrome's Worst Update
from https://blog.avrstory.net
Not all software updates are good.
Software companies make constant updates to the user interface (UI)1 all the time. These can sometimes be good and other times annoying. Some are more minuscule, while others can be obvious.
For someone who spends a lot of time in front of a computer screen, a slight change with a user interface (UI)1 that I am familiar with can throw me off and affect productivity. I've had this thorn on my side throughout the months of September and October in 2025 where I still can't understand why Google would proceed with a particular update that was actually quite bothersome but not immediately obvious. I've even gone so far as to try to change it on my computer resulting in excessive time loss where I essentially waited for a potential change or as to last resort do a pull request.
I am sharing this frustration I had because maybe you probably noticed there was something different with Chrome but couldn't figure out why something just felt off. If you want to know more about what this annoying thing read on.
From a screenshot of my terminal where I spend most of my time.
On Friday, September 19, 2025 I updated to the latest version of Chrome (140.0.7339.186)2 at the time. Something was different... Early on, I couldn't quite pinpoint what it was. Luckily, I had a older versions of Chrome in virtual machines3 that I could compare to. What was causing me to feel uncomfortable about using the Chrome browser?
Turns out, the main branch of Chrome's update (140.0.7339.186) changed the system fonts. Naturally, the first place I look to resolve this issue is the browser settings. Change the settings and everything is back to normal, right? Not quite. This particular font setting cannot be changed in the browser settings. The browser settings for fonts only change the html fonts that get displayed as a webpage. This particular change is in the graphical user interface (GUI)4 window that you interact with; meaning it is in the source code where it would need to be changed.
The area where the font was bothering me is called the omnibar. This is the search bar that sits below the tabs that is the main search bar for the browser. So, why did I have a problem with it?
The font for this update was atrocious! For starters, the font size was much smaller. The design was more organic looking and more long than wide. The letters were also spaced in a "squished" together manner and staggered. All these combined, made reading the text difficult or illegible all together. Depending on screen pixel density (how many dots on the screen) can REALLY affect readability. It was annoying to say the least.
Sure, you can change the desktop scaling to overcome this font problem. In fact, I did rescale the screen only making using the computer even more cumbersome. My main monitor is 1080p and 14 inches so there is limited screen space and pixels. Changing the screen scaling became completely unusable so I decided just to grit my teeth and deal with it resulting with me just using Firefox for at least any browser usage until it was changed (I started writing this post well into discovering the annoyance and continued revising it posthumously going into the New Year).
This font issue seems so trivial. However, it is important to note the importance of legible text on the screen.
Fonts are the main interface for reading and writing. While I am no expert in font design or design in general however, I do know a few things about them. Fonts have a number of different characteristics that can affect the way it looks and how it reads to where certain types of emphasis and meaning can be applied to the word itself simply by altering each of those characteristics. For example, adding serifs can make reading from word to word much easier, where a non-serif font can add more emphasis but make reading large amounts of text much slower. These characteristics include but not limited to size, strength or boldness, serifs, spacing, padding, margins, italics, rotation, color, wrapping, relation to surrounding objects and other letters... The list goes on.
Mind you, this does not even go through the more technical side of understanding text in the context of computers. If you are using English, a Latin derived language, you will often find the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) character encoding standard. There is also UTF-8 character encoding amongst others. Going into character encoding would be out of this topic's scope and can be reserved for future blog posts. Regardless, the character encoding side of text further illustrates the deep landscape that fonts encapsulates and the role it plays as an interface for communication.
I also want to clarify this blog post is not an exhaustive study of fonts and design. Moreover, I intend to create more awareness of the importance of applying good font design where they are needed to both satisfy the aesthetic and practical use of having them. Whether for work or leisure, reading and writing, even at the most basic level, fonts can be impacted by unnoticeable thing as font design.
To further illustrate the font design concept, I listed the alphabet and numbers below. Depending on the device you are using will determine how the content is displayed to you. Each series of letters and numbers have different font designs. Can you spot the differences?
- AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz0123456789
- AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz0123456789
- AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz0123456789
- AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz0123456789
Comments
Post a Comment