Gmail, firefox and fonts on Linux

If you’re like me, you’d hate the default look of web pages (especially gmail) on firefox in Linux. I was beginning to think something was wrong with firefox because the rest of Linux fonts look alright. This is what I got after tinkering around for a day. Looks sweet, doesn’t it.

Here’s how to do it:

  1. Get webcore-fonts package. It’s fonts from Microsoft but only the free ones. You’d know Verdana if you come from Windows. If you hate Microsoft… well, write your own fonts of the same quality.
  2. Get Greasemonkey for firefox.
  3. Get Gmail RL Skin Userscript. Very nice script. I did a few modifications for my own use. Here’s my file in case you need it for reference.

Oh, and send a mail to Google telling them to please stop using ‘Arial’ on all their pages. If Verdana isn’t available by default on Linux, other fonts much better than Arial are! You’d think they’d at least look at their pages on a Linux firefox browser. Sheesh!