Microsoft Knows Whats Best For You

Microsoft is vigorously defending its decision to turn on its ClearType font rendering technology in Internet Explorer 7 even if users have switched it off system-wide.

ClearType is designed to make text more readable on LCD screens. By default, it’s disabled in Windows, but Microsoft’s IE 7 team has decided to enable it for the browser, even if the user has not turned on the feature Windows-wide.

“The decision to turn ClearType on by default in IE is unusual,” acknowledged Bill Hill, a Microsoft researcher, in a posting to the IE team’s blog. “But was made because solid research over the past few years has shown conclusively that it improves reading, the task at which IE users spend most of their time.”

Hill defended the decision to enable ClearType by saying that users didn’t know how to turn it on themselves. In other words Microsoft have taken the thankless job of educating their users by forcing on them ClearType, irrespective of their wishes.

via InternetWeek

You have to admit their impeccable logic. After all who knows better about users than Microsoft?

In case you are not yet convinced then you can still disable ClearType in IE 7 Beta 2 Preview via the Tools/Internet Options/Advanced dialog. Uncheck the box “Use ClearType” under the Multimedia section.

Unfortunately unlike Windows XP, the upcoming Windows Vista will enable ClearType by default.