Update KB2670838 causes problems in Firefox

Windows 7 users who recently installed the new Internet Explorer 10 might have noticed that the text in the Mozilla Firefox browser began to be drawn with artifacts. In some cases, artifacts in images and drop-down menus could also be observed.

Indeed, this is caused by the update KB2670838 , which is necessary for Internet Explorer 10. It contains, among other things, an updated version of DirectWrite , the component responsible for rendering text, including hardware accelerated.
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This update, like the update containing IE10, is currently optional and is not automatically installed on computers.

All fairly new Firefox are subject to this bug. The bug manifests itself mainly on old AMD desktop graphics cards (HD Series up to 4000 inclusive), as well as on some Intel and AMD integrated graphics cards.

The problem has been known since last November , but there is still no solution. Microsoft confirmed the presence of a bug, but nothing concrete has been announced so far.

There are two ways to temporarily solve a problem:

• Rollback update KB2670838. It will entail the removal of IE10.
• Disable hardware acceleration in Firefox preferences (Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> Use hardware acceleration when available). Entails a decrease in performance.