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Google Fonts Analytics

fonts.google.com

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Re: Google Fonts Analytics

#141

Post by crazygringo »

perardi wrote: post #34

In anticipation of "ugh, designers are ruining the web custom fonts", I'm glad that variable fonts are starting to percolate out. https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/design-and-ux... Less overall file size, less HTTP requests. Combine that with preloading and font-display, we're getting to the point where webfonts aren't a giant bandwidth suck. https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/performance/o..…

Oh wow, what's old is new again.

I remember when Adobe launched Multiple Master fonts [1] in 1992 (same concept)... and then killed them in 1999 because not enough people were using them.

I'll be fascinated to see if there's actually demand for it this time around. I personally have had tons of times I've wanted a semibold where none existed, or something halfway between regular and condensed.

But I'm not convinced they're going to save bandwidth for most sites. After all, they incorporate two sets of font outlines along each dimension instead of one, right? And you rarely see a webpage that uses three variations of a font along a single dimension (e.g. sans-serif regular, semibold and bold). A "third" font and beyond is more often a different style (italics) or typeface (serif) entirely. So I don't see the savings in most cases...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_master_fonts

Re: Google Fonts Analytics

#142

Post by paxys »

kevindong wrote: post #139
paxys wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got a source for that, or did you just make it up? Doing some very quick estimation I can't see it being more than $40-60 million, and that is using retail pricing.

I'm getting ~$130 million with these assumptions: * each font load is 170 KB (I downloaded Roboto and that's the file size of one weight) * 36.3 trillion font loads (per the source) * 36.3 trillion * 170 KB/font load = ~6171 PB [0] Plug 6171 PB into the GCP calculator [0] with all egress via GCP Cloud CDN to N. America and the bill comes out to just shy of $130 million. OP is off by an order of magnitude by my napkin…

I assumed 22 kb (compressed) font size. That's the average of the top 10 on their list. (Roboto is 35kb uncompressed for me, not 170kb).

Re: Google Fonts Analytics

#143

Post by bytematic »

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.

Rust based font tools? Do you mean local font manipulation type scripts or some sort of web service?

Re: Google Fonts Analytics

#144

Post by jhalstead »

spectramax wrote: post #128

Can someone provide insight into why Google is hosting fonts for free? Anytime an advertisement company decides to do something for free, my cynicism goes on high alert. I am genuinely curious though - what's the business model? Are they collecting massive amounts of data while offering fonts?

raphlinus had this to say in response to a similar question: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22370494

Re: Google Fonts Analytics

#145

Post by raphlinus »

bytematic wrote: post #143
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.

Rust based font tools? Do you mean local font manipulation type scripts or some sort of web service?

Mostly local font manipulation tools, including a GUI editor, but I can imagine some of the work ultimately becoming useful inside web services.

Re: Google Fonts Analytics

#146

Post by singron »

laughinghan wrote: post #126
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.

"Users can be tracked without cookies being sent" How? Stylesheets can't use fingerprinting or Flash cookies or anything like that, only scripts can.

The Referer header will leak what page you were on and you probably already have connections to Google from the same client IP address. Even if you have Referer blocked, the particular font requested could indicate information about what page you are on when combined with other data.

Re: Google Fonts Analytics

#147

Post by raphlinus »

paxys wrote: post #142
kevindong wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm getting ~$130 million with these assumptions: * each font load is 170 KB (I downloaded Roboto and that's the file size of one weight) * 36.3 trillion font loads (per the source) * 36.3 trillion * 170 KB/font load = ~6171 PB [0] Plug 6171 PB into the GCP calculator [0] with all egress via GCP Cloud CDN to N. America and the bill comes out to just shy of $130 million. OP is off by an order of magnitude by my napkin…

I assumed 22 kb (compressed) font size. That's the average of the top 10 on their list. (Roboto is 35kb uncompressed for me, not 170kb).

35kb sounds like the basic (mostly latin-1) subset. The size will vary a fair amount depending on which subset is selected, etc. In any case, fonts will almost always be served compressed, with WOFF2 being the vast majority of requests.

Re: Google Fonts Analytics

#149

Post by sings »

crazygringo wrote: post #141
perardi wrote: post #34

In anticipation of "ugh, designers are ruining the web custom fonts", I'm glad that variable fonts are starting to percolate out. https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/design-and-ux... Less overall file size, less HTTP requests. Combine that with preloading and font-display, we're getting to the point where webfonts aren't a giant bandwidth suck. https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/performance/o..…

Oh wow, what's old is new again. I remember when Adobe launched Multiple Master fonts [1] in 1992 (same concept)... and then killed them in 1999 because not enough people were using them. I'll be fascinated to see if there's actually demand for it this time around. I personally have had tons of times I've wanted a semibold where none existed, or something halfway between regular and condensed. But I'm not convinced t…

I agree variable fonts won't be some magic bullet for file size, but I suppose cached versions of variable fonts means two different sites could use different axis values and the user would only have to download it the first time round.

So different sites can more specifically tailor font rendering based on their own needs at no extra cost to the user.

Re: Google Fonts Analytics

#150

Post by jsnell »

londons_explore wrote: post #133
Symbiote wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an impressive figure. Macintosh (desktop Mac?) is slightly less than double the X11 figure. https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share has Linux usage at just under 1%.

Lots of "browse the web from this phone box" and "the departures board in the train station that shows a webpage" will be Linux. I bet many of them use Google Fonts, and with them auto-refreshing every 5 seconds all day long, they might get seriously overcounted.

I doubt that the fonts get reloaded when the page is refreshed. According to other posts in this thread, the cache TTL is 24 hours.
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