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Google Fonts Analytics

fonts.google.com

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Re: Google Fonts Analytics

#111

Post by chipotle_coyote »

csomar wrote: post #96
rememberlenny wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I currently work on it as well, so happy to pitch in.

Can you still be tracked if the fonts are delivered from your server?

No. A font file served from your own server is just like any other static asset. (I increasingly tend to do this for my sites, as I've found that using FontSquirrel to create WOFF/WOFF2 files that contain subsets of fonts and/or "collapse" font features -- e.g., stylistic alternates -- can make for very small, efficient files if the subsetting meets your needs.)

Re: Google Fonts Analytics

#112

Post by simplyinfinity »

ignoramous wrote: post #13
jjeaff wrote: post #12

Wow, if you used Google Cloud CDN to serve up that data, it would cost you more than $1 Billion USD.

Curious, what would Cloudflare fronting OVH / Scaleway / Hetzner / S3 / Backblaze cost? I guess, apart from the major expense signing up for Cloudflare's enterprise plan, not much?

Hetzner bandwidth was 2 euro per TB last I checked :)

Edit. It's now apparently 1 euro /tb without vat

Re: Google Fonts Analytics

#113

Post by raphlinus »

zelly wrote: post #89
Bedon292 wrote: post #69

Might be a bit of a dumb question. But when I load google.com and look at the requests. It has fonts.google.com says 200 and 'from memory cache' is that actually sending a request in any way to Google? Or is that actually handled locally? Most of the time I am getting this, so not seeming to make actual requests to them the majority of the time. Is it actually hitting their servers for these tracking stats, or is som…

It depends on the cache control headers sent by the original asset. If you want to make sure you don't hit the CDN, install the Decentraleyes browser extension.

At the time I was there, we aggressively set the cache control headers to minimize the number of requests. Among other things, the font binaries were all versioned and served so each URL was immutable forever. (There's some subtlety around this, it's a 2 stage process with CSS first then the font binaries, and the CSS was generally served with 24 hour expiration).

One motivation was sharing the cache among all sites that linked the fonts, which at the time I think was a big win, but as has been mentioned elsewhere, this is going away.

Re: Google Fonts Analytics

#114

Post by amelius »

raphlinus wrote: post #110
saghm wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Inconsolata was one of the 20 fonts for the original launch Am I understanding this correctly to mean that you were part of a group that invented this font? Independent of the great work you obviously did on everything else, if this is correct, I just wanted to give a specific thank you for that! It's been my go-to font for my terminal, text editor, monospace font in the browser, and even the font my Linux machines…

No, I drew Inconsolata myself, as well as inventing spiral-based tools for designing fonts, as an alternative to Béziers. I started work on it far in advance of working on the "Google Font API" as it was called at launch, so it was very natural to include it, along with other great fonts by other talented designers. I'm glad you like the font!

Curious, have your spiral based tools been documented/published somewhere?

Re: Google Fonts Analytics

#115

Post by raphlinus »

amelius wrote: post #114
raphlinus wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I drew Inconsolata myself, as well as inventing spiral-based tools for designing fonts, as an alternative to Béziers. I started work on it far in advance of working on the "Google Font API" as it was called at launch, so it was very natural to include it, along with other great fonts by other talented designers. I'm glad you like the font!

Curious, have your spiral based tools been documented/published somewhere?

Best place is probably my thesis: https://levien.com/phd/phd.html . All of the code is available under permissive open source license. I've been continuing to poke around with this and hope to have a newer set of tools before long.

Re: Google Fonts Analytics

#116

Post by tjoff »

lwf wrote: post #102
McDyver wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So a lot of fluff and no actual reply. Users can be tracked without cookies being sent, while "access to the data is kept secure". Call me a cynic, but I lost my trust in google a long time ago.

To answer "track users across different websites", I think they pretty clearly say the opposite: > The Google Fonts API is designed to limit the collection, storage, and use of end-user data to what is needed to serve fonts efficiently. > When millions of websites all link to the same fonts, they are cached after visiting the first website and appear instantly on all other subsequently visited sites. [...] The result…

They do not say the opposite.

Apparently they need to collect and store end-user data for serving fonts efficiently. Wonder what that could be...

And if that information happens to be enough for further tracking then it seems to be fair game!

Re: Google Fonts Analytics

#117

Post by pcwalton »

basseq wrote: post #18
paulmendoza wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If google embedded the top fonts in the browser this wouldn’t be an issue. I don’t understand why the font selection in browsers is so limited.

Font selection in browsers isn't limited. Browsers don't have embedded fonts—they rely on whatever fonts are installed in the operating system. The challenge is that to ensure consistency, you need to use the "lowest common denominator" of fonts that are installed by default across all operating systems . Which leaves you with (like) Arial, Times, Courier, Verdana, Georgia, Palatino, and (hahahaha) Comic Sans. The re…

> Which leaves you with (like) Arial, Times, Courier, Verdana, Georgia, Palatino, and (hahahaha) Comic Sans.

Not Palatino.

And most of those fonts have licenses that are inconvenient at best. The only thing that allows them to be packaged for Linux distributions is Microsoft's '90s-era "Core Fonts for the Web" initiative. This initiative is long discontinued, and so the fonts cannot be downloaded from Microsoft anymore. Only the '90s versions of the fonts are free. Worse yet, the license forbids packaging the fonts in any way other than with their original 32-bit Windows installer, which means that hacks like cabextract are necessary to install them on any other system.

Re: Google Fonts Analytics

#119

Post by dt3ft »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #93
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think it's still used for the latter rather than the former now?

I think Google might have better ways to track people. Fonts are also cached by CDNs and the local browser so I’m not sure if they provide good tracking data (they get loaded only for the first page visit for example and popular fonts like Open Sans are probably already in your cache when you open a page). If you’re concerned about tracking as a website operator you can simply load the fonts from your own server, mos…

I am slightly concerned, yes. This is why I chose to host the fonts for my 20-things.com sideproject for as long as I can afford that luxury.

Re: Google Fonts Analytics

#120

Post by [deleted] »

dt3ft wrote: post #41
raphlinus wrote: post #30

I was part of the team that founded this, about 10 years ago if memory serves. I'm still loosely involved, though no longer at Google. Inconsolata was one of the 20 fonts for the original launch, and we're now in the process of launching it as a variable font, with both width and weight axes. I'm also getting funding from them for Rust-based font tools. Feel free to AMA, though no guarantees I'll have good answers.

Was this created in order to track users across different sites or because google wanted to make the world a better place? :)

[deleted]
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