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You know what, it just dawned on me that at one point I had my IE7 ClearType disabled because I didn't like it's smoothing effect. I don't know if that setting is carried on to Chrome or not.

I'm on XP + Chrome.

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AFAIK, ClearType settings apply system-wide. It should be pretty easy to tell though; if any non-image text in your browser is smoothed, it's on. If it's not, it's off.

What it sounds like the white drop shadow did in your case was simply force ClearType on for that text.

Thanks dude. I had initally turned off ClearType because smaller texts were too blurry or you could see a hint of red in some letters.

Found a tool that optimizes the contrast http://www.microsoft.com/typography/ClearTypePowerToy.mspx

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