A large part of the time spent on computers are in the browser, and the browser has significant control over certain things. More so than what you can adjust in the OS. There are massive differences is between Chrome and Firefox, and the latter can be tweaked a lot. Just try opening both Chrome and Firefox, and scroll at the same speed. Firefox is the better one. People don't focus nearly enough on what happens during actual movement on the screen here. And scrolling is the biggest source of movement for most here. There is also research into how the brain processes things during movement and sudden eye movements https://www1.essex.ac.uk/psychology/overlays/2013-207.pdf Lots of things can be switched on about://flags in Chrome and about:config in Firefox. Just enter it in the address bar. And other stuff can be adjusted thru extensions. These are the major things that can be tested in browsers: Chrome vs Firefox font rendering. In firefox more adjustments can be done on about:config, for example gfx.font_rendering.coretext.enabled Chrome vs Firefox scrolling behavior. Just try a complex page on both by scrolling, or test automatically here: https://www.testufo.com/framerates-text Disabling/enabling hardware acceleration. In Chrome this seems to make a significant difference and can be done in settings. Enabling perfect smooth scrolling in firefox (massive difference) https://github.com/yokoffing/Betterfox/blob/f71368d34b87195492b3dd061723e110cdf7fac2/SmoothFox.js#L59 Force sRGB to disable high gammut colors. Just search for srgb in about:config Adjust your sharpness, gamma, brightness etc to make patterns and font rendering look better. This can be done by monitor adjustments, thru color profiles on the OS, or by browser extensions like https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adjust-screen-brightness/ Test on the different tools at this page: http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/clock_phase.php Try with vsync on or off. https://www.vsynctester.com/ Force a specific font on all webpages. There are large differences in how they render, and some are bitmap fonts that doesn't work well on small sizes. In Firefox this can be done by user css or with something like https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/enforce-browser-fonts/ Reduce motion on or off on in the Mac accessibility options. The interface in Firefox as well as many webpages honors this setting. View fps changes when testing scrolling or seeing how vsync behaves. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/archi-fps-meter/ Certain extensions can even be used to create any type of filter overlay. More or less anything can be changed. Reduced saturation, color overlays, slight blur on text, disabling color channels etc. Anything is available with a bit of tinkering. Advanced things can be done with svg filters, and later loaded thru an extension: https://svgfilters.client.io/ Rendering of fonts and other things can be analyzed with zoom. However this won't necessarily pick up everything that happens when hardware acceleration is on https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pixelzoomer/ Try different framerates. Most monitors and cards use variable refresh rate to make movement smoother, but this can also be a source of eye strain. It can be experimented with thru layout.frame_rate to set a fixed one. You can test any framerate you want that your monitor supports. I guess most people won't spend the time to experiment with all these, but at least it can be done. And if enough people figure out what options and changes makes a significant difference it is fairly easy to combine them in a browser extension for easy access.

Technical details on how Firefox renders and how it interacts with the GPU can be seen here https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/gfx/RenderingOverview.html

That is an interesting theory. The problem seems to follow the computer or operating system (or OS version), not the browser. On a good or bad computer, it does not matter which browser gets used. There is either dither/pwm flicker or not.

For many, yea. But there are lots of things here that can be changed that are somewhat decoupled from the OS. Even things like font rendering and color profiles can be changed to emulate what would happen on different graphics cards. A good test for someone really sensitive would be to simply the response of different things in full screen: Full black color rendered in the browser Gray Desaturated color High gamut color Multiple colors Small text covering the screen Small text moving continously Flickers between colors

Here is a small starting point if someone wants to experiment with something similar. The script is all contained in the html, so simply pasting it to ChatGPT and telling it to make certain modification should go a long way. https://codepen.io/xpd5/pen/MWZwprJ

async what does this option (gfx.font_rendering.coretext.enabled) do? I've noticed that text become narrower and a bit crispier.

Sentiny Not entirely sure, but if I remember correctly it was mentioned in a thread about bitmap fonts having issues in some version of firefox. Most pages doesn't use bitmap fonts, but I guess it would affect any font in some way or another if it moved the rendering to something else. CoreText is part of Apples APIs, so this one for example of being able to experiment with widely different ways of rendering.

async Will test it.I also tweaked text sharpening for my macos firefox a bit and this preference somehow interfere with my stable option. Need more testing. Thanks for great info.

I’ve found Firefox with the dark theme and dark mode with gfx.color_management.mode = 1 enabled to be the best for me. The default is “2”, I’m not sure what the difference is. I am also running uBlock Origin and have ambient mode disabled for YouTube. I have not been able to use Safari on Mac OS since version 13. I’m not aware of any way to customize settings in Safari like you can on Firefox. But maybe there is a way?

asus389 Mode 1 applies the profile to most things instead of just tagged. I would also suggest creating the boolean string "gfx.color_management.native_srgb" and setting it to true. (Assuming that this is what your display is.)

Have you tried new Safari v17.0? I found it much better for eyes, text rendering is somehow much sharper now.

How-to: Browser are the best testing ground for eye strain triggers

asus389

I haven’t tried Safari 17 yet. What system and OS did you use it on?

Sentiny

asus389 Macbook Air 15 and Ventura 13.5. Tried it for few days and decided that Firefox is better anyway.

asus389

I was in an Apple store and used safari 17 and it did seem a bit clearer than previous versions. It’s tough to say in a store though. These computers were all running the release version of Sonoma 14.0.

asus389

I installed Safari 17 on Ventura 13.6 on my otherwise tolerable 2017 13 inch MBP w/o Touch Bar. It does seem more tolerable than previous Safari versions, but not quite as good as Safari 13 was on Catalina and not as good as the current Firefox is using the settings I mentioned previously. Still, I'm happy to see the improvement.

This MBP can't run Sonoma so I can't test it with that. I did use it for a bit at the Apple Store on a Mac mini with Apple studio display and an iMac both running Sonoma and it was pretty good also. The only thing I did to improve comfort on those machines was to disable True Tone. It seemed to cause eye strain on all of the laptops running the same version of Mac OS, even with True Tone disabled - not sure why. I've had a hard time tolerating any of the ARM based Apple laptop screens, but the desktops are ok for me weirdly.

Alyosha2001

Waterfox has been very friendly to me, but after recent update it went jittery and tiring. Firefox ESR is still good.

asus389

Alyosha2001 What versions of Firefox ESR and what settings are you using? On MacOS? When I try to update higher than Firefox ESR 115.10 I start getting eye strain again. IDK why its been fine for a long time.

Alyosha2001

asus389 Firefox ESR is up-to-date 115.11 on Windows 8.1 and it does not cause issues. I stopped Waterfox on G5.1.10. Thanks for the heads-up, I stopped Firefox automatic updater, now.

asus389

Has anyone revisited this? All of the major web browsers in their current versions cause some sort of eye strain for me. I was previously able to use Firefox with some settings changed, but that no longer seems to work. I have a 13 inch MacBook Pro 2017 running Mac OS Ventura that is otherwise fine for me, it's just the browsers. All other apps don't bother my eyes?

jordan

asus389 if you enter about:config you should be able to change settings. Firefox has some color management stuff that is enabled default. Maybe causes strain?

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox/Releases/3.5/ICC_color_correction_in_Firefox

simplex

asus389 Has anyone revisited this?

here is my safe settings for z390+gtx1060:

gfx.color_management.enablev4 = false

gfx.color_management.mode = 0

gfx.color_management.rendering_intent = -1

asus389

jordan Thanks. I'll play around with that some more. Previously I had set gfx.color_management.mode to 1 from the default 2 and it helped a lot. That and using the dark theme and mode. But in the more recent versions of Firefox (newer than 120 or ESR 115.7) it no longer seems to resolve the eye strain.

The only plugin I use is uBlockOrigin.

moonpie

asus389
Browsers now all evoke your GPU for page and window rendering.

Firefox allows you to find out exactly when this changed through their official app:
https://mozilla.github.io/mozregression/

128 ESR on x11+EGL feels great. xwayland and wayland definitely feel different but still usable.

asus389

simplex These settings certainly change things, although it doesn't look quite the same as how it looked 115.7 and earlier. Also, I'm a bit unclear of what this does on Mac OS. Mac OS runs everything through colorSync which is built in color management at the system level. So do browsers get around this by doing their own color management (or not)? Or rendering at a lower level that gets around the OS somehow?

simplex

the issue is, new firefox re-render images according to your monitor profile (colorspace), settings above disable this feature

asus389

simplex Thanks. Do you know when they started with this? What version are you using with those settings and what OS?

simplex

asus389 What version are you using

~ 120…127. The joke is now I working with 13700h+IRIS XE and didnt change anything, but with z390+gtx1060 or another grapfic card, I do need changes

moonpie

simplex ~ 120…127.

https://mozilla.github.io/mozregression/quickstart.html

You don't have to guess. Official app will guide you through a bisection.

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

moonpie The idea behind this app is really neat! I feel like there would be potential for similar apps for testing e.g. Linux graphics driver versions or kernel versions…

moonpie

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs The idea behind this app is really neat! I feel like there would be potential for similar apps for testing e.g. Linux graphics driver versions or kernel versions…

https://git-scm.com/docs/git-bisect
https://docs.kernel.org/admin-guide/bug-bisect.html

You can do a bisection on any software that is open source.

simplex

asus389

my last finding is RAM: same timings, same frequencies, one RAM made eye-strain when another - not

both iGPU and dGPU use RAM tbh

When I plug "non strain" RAM, I can use FF with standart settings, no need to change it. Tested in 2x mini-PC keeping same safe RAM

Same logic for win build - with "safe" equipment, I can use w10 1809 also as w10 21h2 or 22h2 build without issues

asus389

So at least on my MacBook Pro, setting gfx.color_management.mode = 0 actually makes Firefox pass the WebKit logo color management test. With 1 or 2 it fails, but still passes other web color management tests. I would have expected the opposite. The WebKit logo test specifically shows if it’s displaying P3. The weird thing is the other wide color images, including other P3 ones, seem to work fine.

https://webkit.org/blog-files/color-gamut/

This is actually the same behavior as Safari on iOS 15 on my iPhone 6S. (Which has never caused me eye strain).

Idk what this says about eye strain. But it’s interesting.

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