What font is that? Now you know.
Fontlens tells you the font, the size, the color and whether that text is actually readable. Hover over anything on any website. No DevTools, no account, no tracking.
Chrome only. Version 1.0.0, published 4 August 2026.
Short answer
Fontlens is a free Chrome extension that identifies the font, size, weight, color and accessibility contrast of any text on the page you are viewing. Two things separate it from the rest of this category: it warns you when the browser silently substituted a different font from the one the page asked for, and it reports both WCAG 2 and APCA contrast with pass or fail verdicts. It makes no network requests at all, so nothing you look at is ever sent anywhere. It is new, with no install base and no reviews yet, which is a real disadvantage against tools that have been around for years.
What it actually does
The font that really rendered
Not the first name in the CSS stack. Fontlens reports what the browser actually drew, plus size in px and rem, weight with its proper name, line height, letter spacing and the full declared stack.
Substitution warning
When the page asked for Aktiv Grotesk and your browser fell back to Arial, you see an amber dot and the name of the font that was requested. No other extension surveyed shows this.
HEX, RGB, HSL, one click apart
Transparent text is composited over what is actually behind it, so the value is the color you see rather than the one declared. Modern spaces work properly, including oklch, lab and color().
WCAG 2 and APCA together
Contrast ratio with AA and AAA verdicts, using the correct thresholds for large text so headings are not flagged unfairly. APCA, the WCAG 3 draft, sits alongside it with the minimum it needs at that size.
A four-tab page report
Every font used and how often. Every text element failing WCAG AA, grouped by color pair and size, click one to jump to it. The page's full color palette. Your saved fonts. Copy the lot as plain text.
Swap a font on the page
Pick from the fonts installed on your machine or type any name. The page redraws instantly. Reset puts everything back and nothing is saved to the site.
The bug that ruins font extensions, and why this one avoids it
The most common complaint across this entire category is that the extension quietly stops working and you have to reload the page. It is not one developer being careless. It is a content script injection problem, and it bites almost everyone.
When an extension is installed or updated while a tab is already open, the copy of the script already in that tab is orphaned. The browser cannot reach it anymore, but the "already loaded" flag it set is still sitting there. A freshly injected copy checks the flag, sees it, and does nothing. The extension looks broken until you reload.
Fontlens tears the old copy down before taking over, so clicking the icon works immediately after an update without reloading anything. This is worth naming because it is the single failure that caps ratings in this niche: Font Picker sits at 3.2 out of 5 with 90,000 users almost entirely because of it.
What Fontlens does not do
Being specific about the limits is more useful than a feature list, so here they are.
- It cannot read a font out of an image. Fontlens reads the rendered DOM, so it only sees text the browser drew as text. A logo, a screenshot or a banner is a picture, and identifying type inside one needs image recognition. Use a service like WhatTheFont by MyFonts for that. No extension in this category can do it.
- It is Chrome only. No Firefox, Edge or Safari build at 1.0.0.
- It has no font marketplace and does not suggest similar fonts. Fonts Ninja does that well if you buy and license type.
- It does not extract page assets. CSS Peeper pulls images and full design specs, which Fontlens does not attempt.
- It has no users and no reviews yet. It launched on 4 August 2026. Every established alternative has a track record and this does not. That is a fair reason to pick something else.
activeTab, scripting and storage, and requests no host permissions at all, which means it structurally cannot see your browsing history or any tab you are not actively looking at. The full detail is on the privacy page.
Who it is for
- Designers checking a handoff. Confirm the built page matches the file, including whether the web font is loading at all.
- Developers rebuilding a page. Read the real computed values instead of guessing from a stylesheet, and copy them straight out as CSS.
- Anyone doing accessibility work. The whole-page contrast scan finds every AA failure at once, grouped, clickable, free.
- Anyone who saw a font and wanted to know what it was. That is the whole reason this category exists.
Frequently asked questions
Is Fontlens free?
Yes, completely. No paid tier, no trial, no account, no upsell. Every feature on this page is available to everyone, and nothing that is free today will move behind a paywall later.
Does Fontlens collect any data?
No. Fontlens makes no network requests of any kind, so there is nothing to collect. No analytics, no tracking, no account, no sync. The optional saved font list lives in chrome.storage.local on your machine and never leaves it.
What permissions does it need, and why?
Three. activeTab gives access to the one tab you are looking at, and only after you click the toolbar icon. scripting injects the inspector into that tab on that click. storage keeps the saved font list locally. Fontlens requests no host permissions, which is why it cannot see your browsing, your history, or any tab you are not actively using.
How is this different from WhatFont?
Two things WhatFont does not do: it warns you when the browser substituted a different font from the one the page requested, and it reports WCAG 2 plus APCA contrast with verdicts. In WhatFont's favour, it has three million users and years of proven accuracy, and Fontlens has neither. There is a full nine-way comparison that says plainly where the alternatives are better.
Can it identify a font in an image or a screenshot?
No, and neither can any other extension in this category. Extensions read the rendered DOM, so they only see text the browser drew as text. A font inside an image needs image recognition, which is what web services like WhatTheFont by MyFonts and Fontspring Matcherator are built for.
Does it work in Firefox, Edge or Safari?
Not at version 1.0.0. Chrome only. Fontlens is built on Manifest V3, which Edge also uses, so an Edge build is realistic later. There is no Firefox or Safari version and no date for one.
Why does Chrome say this is "not trusted by Enhanced Safe Browsing"?
Because Fontlens is new, not because anything is wrong with it. Chrome only marks an extension as trusted once its developer has followed the Chrome Web Store Developer Program Policies for at least a few months. Every recently published extension shows this notice no matter what it does, and by Google's own figures it covers roughly three quarters of everything in the store. There is no setting, permission or code change that removes it. It clears on its own.
What you can do instead of taking anyone's word for it: open the privacy page, which lists all three permissions and explains how to confirm in your own Network tab that Fontlens makes no requests at all. An extension that sends nothing anywhere is a claim you can check in about a minute.
Will it stop working until I reload the page?
It is specifically built not to. See the section above for what causes that across the category and how Fontlens handles it. If it ever does happen to you, that is a bug worth reporting in a store review.
What is the difference between WCAG 2 contrast and APCA?
WCAG 2 gives a ratio such as 4.5 to 1, and that is still what audits, contracts and legal requirements reference. APCA is the draft successor in WCAG 3 and measures perceived lightness contrast instead, with a minimum that changes with font size and weight. APCA is still a draft and can change, so the sensible approach is to show both, which is what Fontlens does.
Get it
Free, Chrome, no account.
After installing, pin the icon to your toolbar. Click it to start, click the page to pin the panel, press Esc to exit.
Rather than ask you to trust that, here is the checkable version: Fontlens requests three permissions, no host permissions at all, and makes zero network requests. Open your Network tab while using it and you will see nothing leave. The privacy page walks through how to confirm it.