Why is the font different for res.end and res.send?

Question

I have the following minimal basic express node js application:

var express = require ('express');
var app = express ();

app.get ('/', function (req, res) {
    res.send ('Hello');
});

app.listen (3000);

When I access this site on localhost:3000 I get a response that looks like:

If I change res.send ('Hello'); to res.end ('Hello');, the response is a different font like:

I am curious; why the difference?

Answer 1

If you pass a string to res.send(), it automatically assumes a Content-Type of html.

res.end(), however, simply calls node's underlying end() implementation on the response stream, so no assumptions are made for the Content-Type.

The reason it renders differently is simply a browser decision to render a "pretty" default font for HTML, and a less-styled font for unknown content types.