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I've noticed recently that Chrome underlines links differently, letting characters like a comma, parenthesis, and lowercase-y break the line. Did this get introduced recently in a specific version? I'm seeing it on 64.0.3282.140 in Chrome and 64.0.3282.119 in Windows 7. As you're reading this, you can hover over the question title and see the "g" and "y" break the underline as well.

See the "Hyperlink Underline Remover" in this Chrome screenshot below: Link in Chrome

Versus the same link in Firefox below: Link in Firefox

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  • Verified Win7 Chrome 64.0.3282.140, Android Chrome 64.0.3282.127
    – Jeff Zeitlin
    Commented Feb 9, 2018 at 17:44
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    Side remark: IMHO, this is a bad design idea. Could be because my eye isn't used to it yet, but also because when looking quickly at links, now we can no more quickly identify if it's one link, or two different links. Before: when underline is interrupted, it means the link is finished. Now: underline is interrupted can be: the link is finished OR there's a y in the link. Another good example of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
    – Basj
    Commented Feb 28, 2018 at 15:37
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    It's always been this way on macOS afaik @Basj. So for me, the link identification is quicker now because I can skip the "determine which OS I'm looking at" step. Guess the using-different-OS-to-seeing-many-multiple-links-ratio is different. ;)
    – bzlm
    Commented Mar 2, 2018 at 7:49
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    Very subtle but elegant improvement, imho
    – papacito
    Commented Mar 2, 2018 at 15:23

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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This is a new default in Chrome 64, although supported since Chrome 57. See the corresponding "Intent to Ship" thread in blink-dev (the Chrome web engine's development forum).

In Chrome 57 we shipped support for text-decoration-skip: ink; which allows skipping descenders in underlines (illustration). We initially suggested making it the default in the intent process but dropped this part for shipping because we had assumed a spec change was required.

We would now like to enable ink skipping by default.

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  • Where do you see that it became the default in v64?
    – WEFX
    Commented Feb 9, 2018 at 18:11
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    a) the Chromestatus link at the bottom of the ITS post; b) the fact that it was posted after v63, but earlier than v64; c) I use Chrome myself...
    – grawity
    Commented Feb 9, 2018 at 18:57
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Added a quick chrome extension (my first one) to disable 'ink skipping' in links:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/disables-ink-skipping-in/ibhigfbbjaeadpfgfhjgcoioddhhlbmf

Agreed. It was awful looking at those link interrupted underlines!

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  • Totally agree, those interrupted underlines are ugly. See also comment on the question.
    – Basj
    Commented Feb 28, 2018 at 15:39
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    Life safer, eh, eye safer. Thanks a thousand! ... For others, this new underline styling of Chrome is "adding" visual elements, example: Smitty ← mouseover, then you see a point after the last letter. Horrible design idea of Chrome this time.
    – Avatar
    Commented Mar 2, 2018 at 10:15
  • Good job, thanks for making this. Would you consider adding a toggle option so one can easily switch between the two behaviors without having to disable the extension?
    – Jacob Stamm
    Commented Mar 19, 2018 at 15:30
  • The extension does not work correctly when a page is loaded in the background. To reproduce: Use "Open link in a new tab", wait until page is loaded, and then open the tab.
    – BillyTom
    Commented Apr 12, 2018 at 7:25

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