NotHereToPlayGames

DirectWrite doesn't fix it in XP. Googling around and rem font-size scaling seems to have been a big issue on several Q-and-A forums in 2013/2014. Still reading through several of them, several suggestions cited do not fix the "squish" (but nor did they for several followers of those threads at the time). It seems for most that this was introduced in Chrome 72 and resolved when upgrading to Chrome 73. Even seen some posts where a background gradient causes fonts to "squish".

Humming Owl now has an experimental version (with assistance from @we3fan) of v9.5 and v11 that targets XP x86 SP2 -- have you tried either of those to see if they will run on your XP system?

I'll update the first thread post of this post thread. I've been waiting until I get my v13 caught up with my v11 and v12. But that could be a week or two (remodeling a bathroom, all new drywall, flooring, shower, sink, toilet, vanity, lighting, and exhaust fan - the whole nine yards and doing all the work myself).

Good question. "During" loading would tend to indicate a .css issue with transition or tranform types of .css functions - from the best I can tell all of these work fine. I have found several pages that "squish" the font in both mine and Humming Owl's v11. The commonality is that the squished font always (so far) has a .css "font-size" in rem.

I tried that page at 100% zoom, default XP DPI (96), and Incognito Mode (no fonts or js blocked) and both my v11 and Humming Owl's v11 "squished" the font.

Your comment didn't dawn on me until I returned from lunch break. I own a '50s classic car with white wall tires and also a '60s classic car with white wall tires, do lunch breaks on occasion with a guy in another '50s classic car with white wall tires and another guy in another '60s classic car with white wall tires. But that's not what you meant, you meant the walls IN MY HOUSE -- they are not white walls, they are an eggshell tan that FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY tends to make them look like they are white. But no, I am not one of these people with walls so dark that it looks like the inside of a cave. edit - removed names of cars, I kind of feel "stalked" that people (think they) know the color of my living room walls and "memorize" such trivial tidbits... oh well...

It appears as though you might be comparing my v11 to Humming Owl's v12. My v11 and Humming Owl's v11 both display that "squished in and crowded" font for me.

Noted, thanks, will see what I can find.

Oh wow! Is that v11 by chance?

What am I looking for in particular? Can you post a screencap? I open that link and everything looks normal, not finding anything "wrong with fonts".

I work in an Engineering office with 60 other Engineers (two of them are IT but they are lumped in with Engineering Department). My computer "brightness" is not any different than any of theirs, both by "my eyes" and by "their eyes". It is the "vampires" eyesight that I worry about - I'm 20/20 and "healthy as a horse". My only doctor that disagrees is my Dentist - but that's a Mountain Dew issue I guess my BIGGEST thing is this - I have HUNDREDS of software packages installed on this system. It's an EYESORE for ONE of these software packages to be "dark" and the other HUNDREDS MINUS ONE to be of a "universal color scheme". I guess, to ME, it's also this - when I buy a book or newspaper, there is no such thing as a "dark theme". You get black text on white paper - period. I do have a "theory" but it's also admittedly just an off-the-cuff theory with no research behind it. My theory is this, that 'gamers' are huge into "dark themes" but those of us that read to read (anything from Aristophanes to MSFN) are fine and dandy with "black text on white paper". However, I do acknowledge that one of our IT guys does use a task-specific software package where all of his text is red, maroon, cyan, blue, yellow, green, purple, and white all on a dark gray almost-but-not-quite black background. But his WEB BROWSER is still black text on white background. I would hate to have his job and have to constantly toggle back and forth between the two. So for him, "I get it". But also for him, he never once has ever complained that his web browser, his AutoCad, his Microsoft Office, his dozens of other software programs, he's hever once complained that they don't have a "dark theme". Oh well... Carry on, fanboys

My hunch is that the Google monopoly plays HEAVILY into that !!! There is a very large amount of .css code dedicated to the "dark theme" that has nothing to do with the 360Chrome user interface - so it seems evident that there was a "concensus" by complying websites that wanted to be "included". Or I supposed more than likely something of the form of "publicly disclosed .css code" -- "If you want to follow in our footsteps and be 'dark' at night, use these .css selectors and users will flock to your site like a dung beetle to a turd." Google fully owns and controls YouTube, DoubleClick, and Fitbit (among others - YouTube our primary concern here). There were industry rumors circa 2015/2017 that Twitter was going to be acquired by Google or Microsoft - that didn't happen but Google did acquire "portions" of Twitter. But in all honesty, I just don't get it! I hear (over and over and over, actually) that my XP theme is "blindingly bright". My monitors are only 1920x1080 - they have higher resolutions but I only use them for certain map-based programs where I want to see more of a city/town at one time. I do not "hide" the taskbar so that's 1920x1050 usable by 360Chrome. If you use default tabs in the middle, my theme uses 76 rows of pixels at the top and another 25 at the bottom for the status bar. 76 + 25 = 101. Consumed from a total of 1050 horizontal lines of resolution. That is 9.62% of total horizontal lines, not undermining that - but my point is that it is the remaining 90.38% of your screen that is "blinding" you (ie, the web site that you are visiting). Auto-hide the XP taskbar and it only drops from 9.62% to 9.35%. Display tabs on top instead of bottom and we are down to 7.50% to 7.71% depending on taskbar presence - and 92.29% to 92.50% of the screen being the website that you are visiting. It "seems to me" that if you don't want basically 91% to 93% of your screen "blinding you", then we are talking about Stylus .css sheets customizing those pages and not the brower user interface only consuming 7% to 9% of your screen. Okay, we do have the settings menus - black text on white background -- but just how often are you "in" the settings menus ??? Is it the MENUS that you dark-theme users are so "against" ???

By "classic" do you mean my blue XP theme? And when you say "for most pages it has little to no effect" -- by this I wonder if the pages that ARE effected are owned by Google and Google/Chrome/Chromium is trying to force its users to use those Google-owned web sites?

Question -- for you "vampires" <chuckles> that prefer a "dark theme", does the dark theme effect only the GUI or does it also effect web pages that you visit?

Thanks.

Note regarding versions: The regular version will have a file name ending in _rebuild_#. Versions with a file name ending in _ungoogled disables embedded Google APIs in much the same way that "ungoogled-chromium" ( https://chromium.woolyss.com/ ) disables embedded Google APIs. The "ungoogled" version is recommended for those that prefer tighter control over a Google-based browser basically giving special treatment to Google cookies and violating user preference settings. A side effect to this approach (which also exists in "ungoogled-chromium") is that the Chrome Web Store is intentionally broken only in as far as the "Add to Chrome" button is concerned. This is great for those that prefer to manually install extensions as opposed to obtaining from the Chrome Web Store. A workaround to restore the "Add to" button (special thanks to @VistaLover for this solution) can be obtained from here -- https://github.com/NeverDecaf/chromium-web-store Mileage may vary, for me this only added the "Add to" button but clicking it only downloaded the extensions .crx (which I personally prefer anyway) as opposed to 'adding to' 360Chrome. I had similar results with official "ungoogled-chromium" on the official Chrome Web Store (restores "Add to" button but does not actually 'add to'). Special thanks to @Humming Owl for translated .png files. Special thanks to @Dixel for discussions leading towards the "ungoogled" versions. XP x86 SP2: v12, v13, and v13.5 work as-is in XP x86 SP2 but v11 requires special modifications - see this post by @we3fan Download links for starting from scratch with a NEW PROFILE: Regular: https://www.dropbox.com/s/mes4wez1v34w9k4/360ChromePortable_11.0.2031_rebuild_8.zip?dl=1 (last updated: Jan 9, 2022) https://www.dropbox.com/s/wol8va166au2p7j/360ChromePortable_12.0.1247_rebuild_12.zip?dl=1 (last updated: Jan 11, 2022) https://www.dropbox.com/s/6lnst7yp0dt34s5/360ChromePortable_13.0.2206_rebuild_9.zip?dl=1 (last updated: Jan 11, 2022) https://www.dropbox.com/s/8h4z346251wg7r8/360ChromePortable_13.5.1030_rebuild_6.zip?dl=1 (last updated: Jan 11, 2022) Ungoogled: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6z65t5yo08fr0ym/360ChromePortable_11.0.2031_rebuild_8_ungoogled.zip?dl=1 (last updated: Jan 9, 2022) https://www.dropbox.com/s/j5zxk7aqv9ljjjc/360ChromePortable_12.0.1247_rebuild_12_ungoogled.zip?dl=1 (last updated: Jan 11, 2022) https://www.dropbox.com/s/ld5dz2uwdowf1cz/360ChromePortable_13.0.2206_rebuild_9_ungoogled.zip?dl=1 (last updated: Jan 11, 2022) https://www.dropbox.com/s/glulv6r8sce6xpy/360ChromePortable_13.5.1030_rebuild_6_ungoogled.zip?dl=1 (last updated: Jan 11, 2022)

Cool! That works to return the "Add to" button and the Google cookie deletes like it is supposed to when settings say to delete on exit.

That's why I'm now providing two "flavors". Not everybody is going to "like" an 'ungoogled' version - but it is a must for privacy-conscious users and is also why "ungoogled chromium" has a very large user base. It's also why SRWare Iron had a very large following but I've stopped following it, unsure if still updated regularly.

Which version are you using? My rebuild? Russian Repack? Humming Owl rebuild? Chinese original?

It's not against the Chrome Web Store. I have a major problem with any web browser having a "delete cookies on exit" setting that Google builds in its own workaround. If I tell the browser to delete cookies on exit and it does NOT delete a Google cookie, that is BAD! Very, Very Bad! I think the second issue is due to whatever was "locking" those keys yesterday that seems to have gone away on its own.

That's a relief, that is how it is supposed to work -- the key is present when 360Chrome is open, the key self-deletes when 360Chrome is closed. This is true only when ran as "portable" (ie, using the "loader" exe and ini). MUI is normal behavior, unless you jump through some hoops to prevent the OS's default "most used" tracking or clean them out regularly with third-party software. I thought ESENT was related to anti-virus software, not sure. I don't have any ESENT keys in my registry.

It's the same nowadays. Every single one of us ALWAYS has the "excuse" when asked "Why did you take the production floor down three hours?" "Because I was denied my request to take it down for four minutes! Right here is my paperwork request. Right here is my paperwork denial."

Previous build links are now dead. I was running out of room on my Dropbox storage.

ROTFL It cracks me up how often this happens. We have somewhere between 350 and 400 computers on the factory floor and they all have software licences that are purchased two years at a time and all based on when the equipment was purchased. Heck, we have some licenses expire before the machine even makes it through "debug and validation" and yet Engineering puts it into "production" with an EXPIRED license, so I have to immediately shut it down and red-tag it! The software companies will pro-rate the license but we can't get "IT" to go that route (ie, update all 350 to 400 when the factory is shut down for two weeks between model years, pro-rate the first license to coincide with model year changeover). Instead, we end up with random computers across the entire production floor popping up "nag screens" for THIRTY DAYS that a license is about to expire. And an Operations Manager so h#llb#nt on squeezing the turnip that IT can't take the machine offline for FOUR MINUTES to update the license. So we dang near always end up with the license EXPIRING and the machine WILL NOT RUN until that license is updated. Several phone calls spanning multiple time zones and THREE HOURS LATER the machine is back up and running. All because the Operations Manager wouldn't release the machine for FOUR MINUTES. And because "IT" can't see past the nose on their face to schedule ALL licenses to be updated during a two-week shutdown, as if their "job security" is somehow tied to them taking THREE HOURS to run down license updates that we all know only takes FOUR MINUTES. But I digress...

Updated links. Apologies for so many updates in such a short amount of time, these should do for a while. I also still need to apply latest rounds of updates to my v13 rebuild. I've also been looking into XP x86 SP2 but that's more of a back-burner project at the moment. I now have two "flavors" of each rebuild. The "ungoogled" flavor takes the same route as "ungoogled chromium" ( https://chromium.woolyss.com/ ) and intentionally breaks a Chrome Web Store embedded API. The advantage is that this prevents an unwanted Google cookie "local storage persistence" present in all Chromium-based browsers since Chrome v69 (which is what 360Chrome v11 is based off of). The "disadvantage" (to some folks) is that this 'fix' removes the "Add to Chrome" button when visiting the Chrome Web Store. For those not familiar, you don't have to use the Chrome Web Store in order to install extensions. I personally download them from https://www.crx4chrome.com/ then save them locally, edit, then drag-and-drop into the chrome://extensions/ page. There are also extensions available that will download the .crx directly from the Chrome Web Store as opposed to going through the "Add to Chrome" button. Just offering some alternatives... Download links - https://www.dropbox.com/s/vbhhwmhl139clid/360ChromePortable_11.0.2031_rebuild_3.zip https://www.dropbox.com/s/o6fhbaypj2q3i7y/360ChromePortable_11.0.2031_rebuild_3_ungoogled.zip https://www.dropbox.com/s/0ifua74kkb35e2e/360ChromePortable_12.0.1247_rebuild_7.zip https://www.dropbox.com/s/cvnnhqc4r812va5/360ChromePortable_12.0.1247_rebuild_7_ungoogled.zip ps - The only difference between the two flavors is the "resources.pak" file. If you wish to alternate back-and-forth between the two, that file is the only file that you need to swap. Make sure to not criss-cross versions. You can swap resources.pak betweeen v11 rebuild 3 and v11 rebuild 3 ungoogled, but you cannot use the v12 resources.pak with v11 and vice versa.