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Does anyone else find the font choice in Brave Search to be an obstacle for them? I just find it so hard to read. I've set Brave as the default search in my b

Does anyone else find the font choice in Brave Search to be an obstacle for them? I just find it so hard to read. I've set Brave as the default search in my browser (Chrome) in an attempt to give less of my traffic to Google, but most of the time I just get frustrated trying to read the search results and repeat the query in Google Search. I know it's ridiculous that I haven't just switched back to Google. I still want Brave to win, but trying to stay on the Brave page is an actively unpleasant experience. The closest analogy I can think of is that it feels like trying to make myself eat vegetables I hate (which is a poor analogy because I like vegetables!)

leodriesch 5y ago
+1. I think they use Poppins, which IMO is one of the most overused Google fonts and also more of a display font. I don’t know why they couldn’t use something more optimized for reading small characters like Inter or just use the system font stack.
perihelions 5y ago
If you're using uBlock, you can one-click block remote font loading from a domain in the badge popup menu (or write custom rules using the no-remote-fonts: or *$font syntax). This will force a fallback to system fonts, which should be perfectly fine. This hardly the "best" solution, but, everyone has uBlock installed, and it's literally a 5-second hack. With pictures: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Per-site-switches#no-remote-fonts https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Per-site-switches#no-...
- Kiro 5y ago
  > everyone has uBlock installed I don't know anyone using uBlock. I know a few using AdBlock but that's it.
DeathArrow 5y ago
You can write an user script to replace fonts if you use something like Greasemonkey.
- dx034 5y ago
  But if a large amount of users have that issue, that'll cause Brave search to fail. 99%+ of users will never use custom scripts, they'd just use the search engine that works out of the box.
jonathansampson 5y ago
Thank you for the feedback, Zestyping. If you wouldn't mind, can you tell me more about what makes the text hard to read? Is it the size, font-face, or color (or a combination of these)? Pro tip: If you aren't happy with the search results offered in Brave Search, and would prefer Google instead, perform the same search but with !g added to the end
- zestyping 5y ago
  Hi Jonathan! Thanks for the question. The main problem is that Poppins is a display typeface, not a text typeface. It's not good for large blocks of small type, and in fact as I examine it more closely, it becomes obvious that it's a low-quality design. Here are some of the problems I've noticed. I've annotated them here: https://imgur.com/a/8am9VJy https://imgur.com/a/8am9VJy - The proportions are distorted, with some letters of excessively varying widths. Capitals like C, D, E, L, G are usually about the same size, but in Poppins, C, G and D are enormous while E and L are too narrow. You can do stuff like this to be cheeky, to have the type draw attention to itself in a display typeface; but a text typeface should aim to be legible, not flashy or distracting. - Kerning is poor, with big irregular gaps between letters, especially after P and T. - The lowercase e in particular is a problem. The middle bar is so thin that it almost disappears, and the tail comes so close that it almost closes the circle. You might think that a single letter can't mess up a whole design, but it's the most common letter in the English language. :) - Hyphens are way off-center and parentheses are too tall, which just looks sloppy. I discovered that you have entire pages of text set in Poppins on your website; these are actively painful to read! Like, just try to read the entire page and see if your eyes can tolerate reading all the way to the end, or try to count the number of times "search" appears in the text. Poppins has the silly, goofy personality of something for young children; it's hard to take seriously. It's named "Poppins" after all! And with all these quality issues to boot, pages like https://brave.com/brave-search-beta/ https://brave.com/brave-search-beta/ just look unprofessional. Do you have a designer on staff? Your designer should be able to explain all this to you and more, and to choose a more legible typeface for your body text. Pick something boring, like the system font on Macs, or Inter, Source Sans, Open Sans, Roboto, etc. Hope this helps! If you run an A/B test, let me know how it goes.

leodriesch 5y ago

+1. I think they use Poppins, which IMO is one of the most overused Google fonts and also more of a display font. I don’t know why they couldn’t use something more optimized for reading small characters like Inter or just use the system font stack.

perihelions 5y ago

If you're using uBlock, you can one-click block remote font loading from a domain in the badge popup menu (or write custom rules using the no-remote-fonts: or *$font syntax). This will force a fallback to system fonts, which should be perfectly fine. This hardly the "best" solution, but, everyone has uBlock installed, and it's literally a 5-second hack. With pictures: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Per-site-switches#no-remote-fonts https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Per-site-switches#no-...

Kiro 5y ago
> everyone has uBlock installed I don't know anyone using uBlock. I know a few using AdBlock but that's it.

DeathArrow 5y ago

You can write an user script to replace fonts if you use something like Greasemonkey.

dx034 5y ago
But if a large amount of users have that issue, that'll cause Brave search to fail. 99%+ of users will never use custom scripts, they'd just use the search engine that works out of the box.

jonathansampson 5y ago

Thank you for the feedback, Zestyping. If you wouldn't mind, can you tell me more about what makes the text hard to read? Is it the size, font-face, or color (or a combination of these)? Pro tip: If you aren't happy with the search results offered in Brave Search, and would prefer Google instead, perform the same search but with !g added to the end

zestyping 5y ago
Hi Jonathan! Thanks for the question. The main problem is that Poppins is a display typeface, not a text typeface. It's not good for large blocks of small type, and in fact as I examine it more closely, it becomes obvious that it's a low-quality design. Here are some of the problems I've noticed. I've annotated them here: https://imgur.com/a/8am9VJy https://imgur.com/a/8am9VJy - The proportions are distorted, with some letters of excessively varying widths. Capitals like C, D, E, L, G are usually about the same size, but in Poppins, C, G and D are enormous while E and L are too narrow. You can do stuff like this to be cheeky, to have the type draw attention to itself in a display typeface; but a text typeface should aim to be legible, not flashy or distracting. - Kerning is poor, with big irregular gaps between letters, especially after P and T. - The lowercase e in particular is a problem. The middle bar is so thin that it almost disappears, and the tail comes so close that it almost closes the circle. You might think that a single letter can't mess up a whole design, but it's the most common letter in the English language. :) - Hyphens are way off-center and parentheses are too tall, which just looks sloppy. I discovered that you have entire pages of text set in Poppins on your website; these are actively painful to read! Like, just try to read the entire page and see if your eyes can tolerate reading all the way to the end, or try to count the number of times "search" appears in the text. Poppins has the silly, goofy personality of something for young children; it's hard to take seriously. It's named "Poppins" after all! And with all these quality issues to boot, pages like https://brave.com/brave-search-beta/ https://brave.com/brave-search-beta/ just look unprofessional. Do you have a designer on staff? Your designer should be able to explain all this to you and more, and to choose a more legible typeface for your body text. Pick something boring, like the system font on Macs, or Inter, Source Sans, Open Sans, Roboto, etc. Hope this helps! If you run an A/B test, let me know how it goes.