2/1     Cool, I hated the ClearType-looking fonts of IE7 beta 2 that you can't
        seem to turn off, but it looks like a related feature is that page
        zooms are much more natural.  Now theoretically my mom can read those
        tiny Chinese characters a little better.
        \_ clear type or anti-alias font is not very good for small fonts.
        \_ So what's cool about IE7 vs. FF?
        \_ Why do you care about IE7?
           \_ "page zooms are much more natural" (good)
              "ClearType-looking fonts [can't turn off]" (bad)
              I'm also interested in any good things in IE7 being copied in FF
              besides the first being good for mymom, I'm interested in any
              good things in IE7 being copied in FF
              \_ Perhaps I was unclear.  I use Firefox and Opera instead of IE.
                 Why would you expose yourself to all the IE problems by using
                 it?
                 \_ It's for mymom.  She reads a lot of Chinese web sites.
                    Firefox is poor at rendering zoomed in Chinese web sites.
                    I also had her on Firefox initially but it had problems
                    with IE-limited web pages (don't ask me, they just had
                    problems with FF), so she's using that anyway.
                    \_ Have you tried Opera?  It's got the best zooming IMO.
                       \_ not for a year or so, but I'll try it.  it's
                          really the Chinese character rendering.
                          really the Chinese character rendering while not
                          screwing up the page layout.
                    \_ I am sorry, but that is not the issue.  I read Chinese
                       site everyday, and I found that setting minimum font
                       size does most of the trick.. and I set minimum font
                       size to 18 due to my poor eye sight.
                       \_ Mymom uses a 17" LCD (she won't accept a bigger one
                          because the 17" one was a joint gift from the
                          children).  Anyway, I set the minimum font size
                          to 32 and compared FF to IE7, and IE7 wins IMO ...
                          that means I'm probably gonna install that for her.
        \_ What is "page zoom"?
           \_ Font size smaller / bigger, but in IE7, I think it uses
              vector scaling or something like that, AND it also zooms
              the images appropriately, which is something I forgot to
              mention.
           \_ Magnifying the whole page, including images and fonts, by an
              arbitrary percentage and it all "just works".  Before this
              feature was introduced, I think you could only do font size
              bigger/smaller for IE and FF, though it sounds like Opera zooming
              is good.  Yeah, just googled, Opera has it, but not FF (yet):
              http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/23555
              Okay, googling further there's an FF extension in beta:
              http://www.memb.jp/~deq/mozilla/pagezoom
              \_ The browser on <DEAD>MyTurn.com<DEAD>'s Global PC had this feature six
                 years ago.  (Yeah the company went under.)
        \_ Okay, I found out where to turn off the ClearType.  It's yet
           another option in Tools -> Options -> Advanced. -op
        \_ I would urge you move your mom to Firefox for security reason.
           IE and its ActiveX plugins is too insecure for average-joe to
           use it.