
It seems like the Chrome browser in Ubuntu has some issues in displaying Tamil fonts. I guess, other Indian languages also might be having the same issue. The weirdest thing is Firefox was displaying the Tamil content properly.

So, after searching through the Chromium group for a while, found the fix for this issue.

## To fix Tamil font in Ubuntu Chrome

1.  Open Terminal
2.  Go to the folder: **cd /usr/share/fonts/truetype/freefont**
3.  Delete \*FreeSerif.ttf: **\*sudo rm FreeSerif.ttf**
4.  Delete \*FreeSans.ttf: **\*sudo rm FreeSans.ttf**
5.  Close and re-open the browser.

The Tamil font should be displayed properly now.


Fix for viewing Tamil font in Chrome - Ubuntu


If you are using your Opera Mini mobile browser to access regional websites, you might have faced this issue. Instead of seeing the proper regional content (in my case, its Tamil), you might have seen boxes all over there in that tiny mobile screen. This is because, by default, Opera Mini browser couldn't be able to render the complex scripts, i.e. regional fonts.

So, to enable the regional (Tamil or Telugu or you name it!) language in Opera Mini browser,

1.  Open the address **about:config** in your opera mini browser. This will open the browser's option page.
2.  Scroll down until you see something like this: **Use bitmap fonts for complex scripts**.
3.  Set the above option value to **yes** and then click on **Save** button.

That's it. Now you'll be able to enjoy the local content from your Opera Mini browser.

## Technicalities:

All the web traffic from Opera Mini browser goes through Opera's proxy servers, which optimize the web content for mobile experience. As I said above, Opera Mini does not have the capability to render complex scripts in mobile. So, by setting the above option, we are letting the Opera's proxy servers to render the complex scripts as images and send those images to mobile browser. Thus you'll see the regional content as images, instead of fonts.

PS: came to know about this tip when I met the Tamil tweeters on last Sunday. Thanks to them for sharing this info.


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